[bash] How to prevent rm from reporting that a file was not found?

I am using rm within a BASH script to delete many files. Sometimes the files are not present, so it reports many errors. I do not need this message. I have searched the man page for a command to make rm quiet, but the only option I found is -f, which from the description, "ignore nonexistent files, never prompt", seems to be the right choice, but the name does not seem to fit, so I am concerned it might have unintended consequences.

• Is the -f option the correct way to silence rm? Why isn't it called -q?
• Does this option do anything else?

I had same issue for cshell. The only solution I had was to create a dummy file that matched pattern before "rm" in my script.

-f is the correct flag, but for the test operator, not rm

[ -f "$THEFILE" ] && rm "$THEFILE"

this ensures that the file exists and is a regular file (not a directory, device node etc...)

Yes, -f is the most suitable option for this.

\rm -f file will never report not found.

As far as rm -f doing "anything else", it does force (-f is shorthand for --force) silent removal in situations where rm would otherwise ask you for confirmation. For example, when trying to remove a file not writable by you from a directory that is writable by you.