I put something in the wrong folder.. and can't remove it


root@server22 [/usr/src]# rm mailscanner-autoinstall-1.5/
rm: remove directory `mailscanner-autoinstall-1.5/'? y
rm: cannot remove directory `mailscanner-autoinstall-1.5/': Is a directory

Any ideas?

try 'rm -rf' ??

im not sure how effective it is but always works for me :)

between if you just placed it in wrong folder you can use mv command as well ;)

is rmdir :stickout:

-rf worked lol.. thanks

rmdir will only work if the directory is empty. rm will remove files.

So if you want to remove a directory with a bunch of files in it, we'll call this directory "foo" for example.

rm -rf foo

That will remove the directory and the files. :)

Thanks for everyones help and reply.

Whereas -r stands for recursive (required for directories) and -f stands for force (deletes write protected files / sub directories as well).

As I stated elsewhere, if you don't know what rm -rf does, you should not really play around with it.

It'll delete directories without asking you for confirmation...If you make a boo boo, then you might be in deep doo doo!

Me being the paranoid fool that I am, when I'm using rm -rf, I type with 2 fingers. (my 2 index fingers, just to make sure I enter the correct directory name.)