FASTRM(1)                                               FASTRM(1)

NAME

       fastrm - quickly remove a set of files

SYNOPSIS

       fastrm  [  -d ] [ -e ] [ -uN ] [ -sM ] [ -cI ] base_direc­
       tory

DESCRIPTION

       Fastrm reads a list of files or a list of article  tokens,
       one  per  line,  from its standard input and removes them.
       If a file is not an absolute pathname, it is  taken  rela­
       tive  to the directory specified on the command line.  The
       base_directory parameter must be a simple  absolute  path­
       name  --  that  is,  it  must  not  contain any ``/./'' or
       ``/../'' references.

       Fastrm  is  designed  to  be  faster  than   the   typical
       ``| xargs rm'' pipeline.  For example, fastrm will usually
       chdir(2) into a directory before removing files  from  it.
       If  the  input is sorted, this means that most files to be
       removed will be simple names.

       Fastrm assumes that its input is valid and that it is safe
       to  just do an unlink(2) call for each item to be removed.
       As a safety measure, if fastrm is  run  by  root  it  will
       first  stat(2)  the  item  to  make  sure that it is not a
       directory before unlinking it.

OPTIONS

       -d     If the ``-d''  flag  is  used  then  no  files  are
              removed.   Instead  a  list  of  the  files  to  be
              removed, in debug form, is printed on the  standard
              output.   Each  line  contains  either  the current
              directory of fastrm at the time  it  would  do  the
              unlink,  and  then  the  path name it would pass to
              unlink(2) as two fields separated  by  white  space
              and  a  ``/'',  or the absolute path name (a single
              field) of files it would unlink using the  absolute
              path name.

       -e     If  the  ``-e''  flag is used, fastrm will treat an
              empty input file (stdin) as an error.  This is most
              useful  when  fastrm  is last in a pipeline after a
              preceding sort(1) as if the sort fails, there  will
              usually be no output to become input of fastrm.

       -u     If  the ``-u'' flag is used, then fastrm makes fur­
              ther assumptions about  its  work  environment;  in
              particular, that there are no symbolic links in the
              target tree.  This flag also suggests  that  it  is
              probably faster to reference the path ``../../../''
              rather than start from  the  root  and  come  down.
              (Note that this probably isn't true on systems that
              have a namei cache, which usually holds  everything



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FASTRM(1)                                               FASTRM(1)


              except  ``..'').  The optional N is an integer that
              specifies the maximum number of ``..''  segments to
              use  -- paths that would use more than this use the
              absolute path name (from the root) instead.  If the
              ``-u''  flag  is  given without a value, ``-u1'' is
              assumed.

       -s     If the ``-s'' flag is used, then fastrm  will  per­
              form the unlinks from one directory -- that is when
              a group of files in one  directory  appear  in  the
              input  consecutively -- in the order that the files
              appear in the directory from which they are  to  be
              removed.   The  intent of this flag is that on sys­
              tems that have a per-process directory cache, find­
              ing  files  in  the directory should be faster.  It
              can have smaller benefits on  other  systems.   The
              optional  M is an integer that specifies the number
              of files that must be going to be removed from  one
              directory before the files will be ordered.  If the
              ``-s'' flag is given without a  value,  ``-s5''  is
              assumed.   When  the directory reordering is in use
              fastrm will avoid attempting to unlink  files  that
              it  can't  see in the directory, which can speed it
              appreciably  when  many  of  the  file  names  have
              already been removed.

       -c     The  ``-c''  flag  may  be given to instruct fastrm
              when it should chdir(2).  If the number of files to
              be  unlinked  from  a  directory is at least I then
              fastrm will chdir and unlink the files from in  the
              directory.  Otherwise it will build a path relative
              to its current directory.  If ``-c'' is given with­
              out the optional integer I then ``-c1'' is assumed,
              which will cause fastrm to always  use  chdir.   If
              ``-c'' is not used at all, then ``-c3'' is assumed.
              Use ``-c0''  to  prevent  fastrm  from  ever  using
              chdir(2).

       -a -r  There  are also ``-a'' and ``-r'' options, which do
              nothing at all, except allow you  to  say  ``fastrm
              -usa'' ``fastrm -ussr'' or ``fastrm -user''.  These
              happen to often be convenient sets  of  options  to
              use.

EXIT STATUS

       Fastrm  exits with a status of zero if there were no prob­
       lems, or one  if  something  went  wrong.   Attempting  to
       remove  a  file  that  does  not exist is not considered a
       problem.  If the program exits with a non-zero status,  it
       is  probably a good idea to feed the list of files into an
       ``xargs rm'' pipeline.

HISTORY

       This is revision 1.1.2.1, dated 1999/06/12.



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