rmdir

rmdir command is used remove empty directories from the filesystem in Linux. The rmdir command removes each and every directory specified in the command line only if these directories are empty. So if the specified directory has some directories or files in it then this cannot be removed by rmdir command.

syntax

rmdir [-p] [-v | –verbose] [–ignore-fail-on-non-empty] directories …

options	Description
–help	It will print the general syntax of the command along with the various options that can be used with the rmdir command as well as give a brief description about each option.
rmdir -p	In this option each of the directory argument is treated as a pathname of which all components will be removed, if they are already empty, starting from the last component.
rmdir -v, –verbose	This option displays verbose information for every directory being processed.
rmdir –ignore-fail-on-non-empty	This option do not report a failure which occurs solely because a directory is non-empty. Normally, when rmdir is being instructed to remove a non-empty directory, it simply reports an error. This option consists of all those error messages.
rmdir –version	This option is used to display the version information and exit.

Examples

• rmdir -p mydir/mydir1 This will first remove the child directory and then remove the parent directory.

• rmdir mydir1 mydir2 mydir3 Remove the directories mydir1, mydir2, and mydir3, if they are empty. If any of these directories are not empty, then an error message will be printed for that directory, and the other directories will be removed.