1rmdir(2)                      System Calls Manual                     rmdir(2)
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NAME

6       rmdir - delete a directory
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LIBRARY

9       Standard C library (libc, -lc)
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SYNOPSIS

12       #include <unistd.h>
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14       int rmdir(const char *pathname);
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DESCRIPTION

17       rmdir() deletes a directory, which must be empty.
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RETURN VALUE

20       On  success,  zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
21       set to indicate the error.
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ERRORS

24       EACCES Write access to the directory containing pathname  was  not  al‐
25              lowed,  or one of the directories in the path prefix of pathname
26              did not allow search permission.  (See also path_resolution(7).)
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28       EBUSY  pathname is currently in use by the system or some process  that
29              prevents  its  removal.   On  Linux, this means pathname is cur‐
30              rently used as a mount point or is the  root  directory  of  the
31              calling process.
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33       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.
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35       EINVAL pathname has .  as last component.
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37       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.
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39       ENAMETOOLONG
40              pathname was too long.
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42       ENOENT A  directory  component  in pathname does not exist or is a dan‐
43              gling symbolic link.
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45       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
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47       ENOTDIR
48              pathname, or a component used as a  directory  in  pathname,  is
49              not, in fact, a directory.
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51       ENOTEMPTY
52              pathname contains entries other than . and .. ; or, pathname has
53              ..  as its final component.  POSIX.1 also allows EEXIST for this
54              condition.
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56       EPERM  The  directory  containing pathname has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX)
57              set and the process's effective user ID is neither the  user  ID
58              of  the  file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing
59              it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have  the
60              CAP_FOWNER capability).
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62       EPERM  The  filesystem containing pathname does not support the removal
63              of directories.
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65       EROFS  pathname refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.
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STANDARDS

68       POSIX.1-2008.
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HISTORY

71       POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
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BUGS

74       Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can  cause  the  unexpected
75       disappearance of directories which are still being used.
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SEE ALSO

78       rm(1),  rmdir(1),  chdir(2),  chmod(2), mkdir(2), rename(2), unlink(2),
79       unlinkat(2)
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83Linux man-pages 6.05              2023-03-30                          rmdir(2)
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