unlink invocation (GNU Coreutils 9.0)
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12.8 unlink: Remove files via the unlink syscall
unlink
deletes a single specified file name. It is a minimalist interface to the system-provided unlink
function. See Deleting Files in The GNU C Library Reference Manual. Synopsis: It avoids the bells and whistles of the more commonly-used rm
command (see rm invocation).
unlink filename
On some systems unlink
can be used to delete the name of a directory. On others, it can be used that way only by a privileged user. In the GNU system unlink
can never delete the name of a directory.
The unlink
command honors the --help
and --version
options. To remove a file whose name begins with ‘-
’, prefix the name with ‘./
’, e.g., ‘unlink ./--help
’.
An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value indicates failure.