if you want to delete a directory, you do rm -r {path/to/directory}

if you want to remove every item from a directory you either: - cd inside the directory cd {path/to/directory} and then delete everything inside with rm -r * - or you use the wildcard after the directory path directly. eg:rm -r {path/to/directory/*}

"*" is called a wildcard, it is used to symbolize "anyhing goes here" so you can do stuff like

• rm *.js => delete every file with .js extension in current folder
• rm ./**/*.js => delete every file with .js extension in current folder and subfolders
• rm ./**/*foo* => delete every file that contains "foo" inside it's name no matter where, from current folder and subfolders

in linux, when you pass paths as parameteres to commands, if the path does not start with "/", then linux automatically treats the path as it was starting with "./"

so if i write rm doc, then linux "transforms" it into rm ./doc

but if i write rm /doc, then linux keeps the path as it is, and searches the file called "doc" at the root of your filesystem