Unlink (Unix) Explained

In Unix-like operating systems, unlink is a system call and a command line utility to delete files. The program directly interfaces the system call, which removes the file name and (but not on GNU systems) directories like rm and rmdir.^[1] If the file name was the last hard link to the file, the file itself is deleted as soon as no program has it open.^[2]

Unlike the [[rm (Unix)|rm]] utility, the unlink utility only accepts one argument, which can be desirable to guard against accidental multi-deletions.^[3]

It also appears in the PHP, Node.js, R, Perl and Python standard libraries in the form of the unlink built-in function. Like the Unix utility, it is also used to delete files.^{[4] [5] [6] [7]}

Examples

To delete a file named foo, one could type:% unlink foo

In PHP, one could use the following function to do the same:unlink("foo");

The Perl syntax is identical to the PHP syntax, save for the parentheses:unlink "foo";

In Node.js it is almost the same as the others:fs.unlink("foo", callback);

In R (with the S language compatibility):unlink("foo")

1. Comment: using the inside argument 'recursive = TRUE', directories can be deleted

Similarly in Python:os.unlink("foo")

See also

• List of Unix commands
• link (Unix)
• ln (Unix)

Notes and References

1. Web site: GNU Coreutils: unlink invocation. www.gnu.org.
2. Web site: unlink. pubs.opengroup.org.
3. Web site: Differences Between rm and unlink Commands | Baeldung on Linux . 2025-03-10 . 2024-12-18 . https://archive.today/20241218171826/https://www.baeldung.com/linux/rm-vs-unlink . bot: unknown .
4. Web site: PHP: unlink - Manual. php.net.
5. Web site: unlink - perldoc.perl.org. perldoc.perl.org.
6. Web site: File System - Node.js v13.0.1 Documentation. nodejs.org.
7. Web site: os — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces — Python 3.8.0 documentation. python.org.