NAME

       fastrm - quickly remove a set of files

SYNOPSIS

       fastrm [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -uN ] [ -sM ] [ -cI ] base_directory

DESCRIPTION

       Fastrm  reads  a list of files, one per line, from its standard input and removes them.  If a file is not
       an absolute pathname, it is taken  relative  to  the  directory  specified  on  the  command  line.   The
       base_directory parameter must be a simple absolute pathname — 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 further 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  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 perform 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
              systems that have a per-process directory cache, finding 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 without 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 problems, 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 1.3, dated 1996/10/29.

                                                                                                       FASTRM(8)