unlink deletes a single specified file name.
It is a minimalist interface to the system-provided
unlink
function. See Deleting Files. Synopsis:
It avoids the bells and whistles of the more commonly-used
rm command (see rm invocation).
unlink filename
On some systems unlink
can be used to delete the name of a
directory. On others, it can be used that way only by a privileged user.
In the GNU system unlink
can never delete the name of a directory.
The unlink command honors the --help and --version options. To remove a file whose name begins with ‘-’, prefix the name with ‘./’, e.g., ‘unlink ./--help’.
An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value indicates failure.