unlink (Unix)

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]

It also appears in the PHP, Node.js and Perl standard libraries in the form of the unlink() built-in function. Like the Unix utility, it is also used to delete files.^[3][4][5]

Example

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);

References

See also

• List of Unix programs
• link command
• ln command