rmdir
Section: System Calls (2)
Updated: 2022-10-30
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NAME
rmdir - delete a directory
LIBRARY
Standard C library
(libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int rmdir(const char *pathname);
DESCRIPTION
rmdir()
deletes a directory, which must be empty.
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned.
On error, -1 is returned, and
errno
is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
- EACCES
-
Write access to the directory containing
pathname
was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of
pathname
did not allow search permission.
(See also
path_resolution(7).)
- EBUSY
-
pathname
is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its
removal.
On Linux, this means
pathname
is currently used as a mount point
or is the root directory of the calling process.
- EFAULT
-
pathname points outside your accessible address space.
- EINVAL
-
pathname
has
.
as last component.
- ELOOP
-
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
pathname.
- ENAMETOOLONG
-
pathname was too long.
- ENOENT
-
A directory component in
pathname
does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
- ENOMEM
-
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
- ENOTDIR
-
pathname,
or a component used as a directory in
pathname,
is not, in fact, a directory.
- ENOTEMPTY
-
pathname
contains entries other than
. and .. ;
or,
pathname
has
..
as its final component.
POSIX.1 also allows
EEXIST
for this condition.
- EPERM
-
The directory containing
pathname
has the sticky bit
(S_ISVTX)
set and the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID
of the file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing it,
and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the
CAP_FOWNER
capability).
- EPERM
-
The filesystem containing
pathname
does not support the removal of directories.
- EROFS
-
pathname
refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.
STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
BUGS
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of directories which are still being used.
SEE ALSO
rm(1),
rmdir(1),
chdir(2),
chmod(2),
mkdir(2),
rename(2),
unlink(2),
unlinkat(2)
Index
- NAME
-
- LIBRARY
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- RETURN VALUE
-
- ERRORS
-
- STANDARDS
-
- BUGS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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Time: 10:16:41 GMT, April 20, 2024