How to Delete Files and Directories in Linux

1. Remove file by using “unlink”:

Not so well-liked. We may use the unlink command to permanently delete a single file.

$ unlink {file-name}



2. Delete a single file:

The rm command, which facilitates deleting one or more files simultaneously, is a more widely used command for removing files.

$ rm {file-name}

If the file is write-protected, rm will ask you to validate its deletion; otherwise, it will delete it without prompting. Using the “-i” flag to force rm to prompt for confirmation before removing a file:

$ rm -i {file-name}

The rm command deletes files without showing any messages. Using the rm command with the -v flag to see what the rm command is currently doing.

$ rm -v {file-name}

Using the -f flag to remove write-protected files without asking for clarification.

$ rm -f {file-name}



3. Multiple files can be deleted:

Bypassing multiple filenames as arguments to rm, you can delete multiple files.

$ rm {file-name-1} {file-name-2} {file-name-3} ... {file-name-N}

Regular expressions are also supported by rm. If you want to delete all files with the name file-name-*, type:

$ rm file-name*.ext

Regular expressions may also be used to define different directories. We can use something like to delete three files that fit file-name-1, file-name-2, and file-name-3.

$ rm file-name-[123]



4. Delete the archive:

The rm command with the -d flag can be used to remove an empty directory.

$ rm -d {dir-name}

Supported options for file deletion can also be combined with deleting the directory with the -d flag.

$ rm -idv {dir-name}

Using the -r flag to delete a non-empty directory.

$ rm -r {dir-name}

If you do not want a prompt before deleting the directory and its contents, use the -rf flag. This will remove everything from inside the directory, including the directory itself, without any confirmation. Use caution especially when using as a root.

$ rm -rf {dir-name}



5. Locate and delete files:

We can use the locate command with various choices for more complicated specifications. To delete all files in a path specified by {dir-to-search} that follow a pattern {pattern}.

    $ find {dir-to-search} -type f -name {pattern} -exec rm -f {} \;

Example:

$ find luv -type f -name "*.txt" -exec rm -f {} \;


We may slightly change the above command to delete everything that fits the sequence {pattern}, including directories within {dir-to-search}:

$ find {dir-to-search} -name {pattern} -exec rm -rf {} \;

Internally, modern implementations of the find command support the delete feature. The -delete flag is used to override the rm instruction, while the –depth flag tells find to process the contents of the directory before the directory itself:

    $ find {dir-to-search} -type f -name {file-name-pattern} -depth -delete




6. Empty files should be found and deleted:

You may use the following command to remove all empty directories within a given path dir-to-search:

$ find {dir-to-search} -type d -empty -delete

Instead, use the following command to remove all empty files within a given path dir-to-search:

$ find {dir-to-search} -type f -empty -delete



7. Permissions are used to locate and delete files:

We can now remove files based on special permissions, such as:

    $ find {dir-to-search} -name {pattern} -perm {NNN} -delete

Consider the following scenario:

$ find /var/tmp -name "temp*" -perm 755 -delete