Deleting a file

The command rm can delete, or remove, several files at once. For example:

rm file1 file2 file3

removes all the specified files.

Suppose Alice Smith's directory projectb had several old meeting notices in it that she wanted to delete: 0607.mtg, 0615.mtg, 0623.mtg, and 0628.mtg. She could remove all four with just a single command:

rm 06*.mtg

Tip: Be careful when using the wildcard asterisk (*) for removing files; you may want to use the -i option, which prompts you to verify the deletion.

For the tcsh shell, see Displaying deletion verification for more information on how to control the wildcard asterisk.