One or more directories can be created with a single mkdir command.
1. Creating directories:
Syntax: mkdir [options] dirname
$ mkdir dir1 dir2 dir3
$ ls -l
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:45 dir1
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:45 dir2
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:45 dir3
mkdir dir1 dir2 dir3 creates three directories named “dir1” “dir2” “dir3”.
2. Creating directories with spaces in names:
If you need to create directories containing spaces in their names, use quotes ” “.
$ mkdir "Anakin Skywalker" "Han Solo" "Jabba The Hut"
$ ls -l
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:47 Anakin Skywalker
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:47 Han Solo
drwxrwxr-x 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 10:47 Jabba The Hut
3. Creating directory hierarchives with mkdir -p:
I will create ~/dir1/dir2/dir3/.
$ mkdir -p ~/dir1/dir2/dir3
$ tree -L 1 ~/dir1/
/home/razvan/dir1/
└── dir2
└── dir3
2 directories, 0 files
Usefull mkdir alias:
$ alias mkdir="mkdir -p"
4. Creating directories with customized permissions: mkdir -m
You can set the directory’s permissions before creating it (use the octal method, not rwx):
$ mkdir -m 740 dir
$ ls -ld dir
drwxr----- 2 razvan razvan 4096 2012-05-29 11:22 dir/
Now, let’s learn how to delete directories with the rmdir command:
Syntax: rmdir [options] /path/to/dir
5. Removing empty directories: rmdir
$ rmdir mike
$ ls -l mike
ls: cannot access mike: No such file or directory
6. Remove the non empty directories: rm -r
If you try rmdir on a dir containing files/folders, you will get the following error:
$ rmdir Aa/
rmdir: failed to remove `Aa/': Directory not empty
rm -r is for deleting directories recursively (deleting directories along with the files they contain)
$ rm -r Aa
$ ls -l Aa
ls: cannot access Aa: No such file or directory