Linux: Deleting Directory Using Rmdir Or Rm Command

For a Linux new learning, if you know how to create a directory in linux operating system, then you should also know that how to delete or remove directory. this post will guide linux newbie to remove directory in command line interface under linux.

​Delete Direcotry Using Rmdir command

The syntax is as followss:

rm [options]  <dirname>

Let’s see a sample deleting a directory named as “testdir” under /home/adir directory. issue the following command:

rmdir /home/dir/testdir

Output:

[root@devops ~]# rmdir /home/adir/testdir

[root@devops ~]# ls /home/adir

aa

Deleting Directory Using Rm Command

The above command “rmdir” just used to remove empty directories, if you want to remove all files and directories under that directory, then you need to use rm command with “-rf” option. issue the following command:

rm -rf /home/adir/testdir

Output:

[root@devops adir]# ls testdir/

testdir2

[root@devops adir]# rm -rf testdir/

[root@devops adir]# ls 

aa

Done….