Perl 5 version 24.3 documentation

unlink

  • unlink LIST

  • unlink

    Deletes a list of files. On success, it returns the number of files it successfully deleted. On failure, it returns false and sets $! (errno):

    1. my $unlinked = unlink 'a', 'b', 'c';
    2. unlink @goners;
    3. unlink glob "*.bak";

    On error, unlink will not tell you which files it could not remove. If you want to know which files you could not remove, try them one at a time:

    1. foreach my $file ( @goners ) {
    2. unlink $file or warn "Could not unlink $file: $!";
    3. }

    Note: unlink will not attempt to delete directories unless you are superuser and the -U flag is supplied to Perl. Even if these conditions are met, be warned that unlinking a directory can inflict damage on your filesystem. Finally, using unlink on directories is not supported on many operating systems. Use rmdir instead.

    If LIST is omitted, unlink uses $_ .