1RENAME(2)                  Linux Programmer's Manual                 RENAME(2)
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NAME

6       rename - change the name or location of a file
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SYNOPSIS

9       #include <stdio.h>
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11       int rename(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);
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DESCRIPTION

14       rename()  renames  a  file,  moving it between directories if required.
15       Any other hard links to the file (as created using link(2))  are  unaf‐
16       fected.  Open file descriptors for oldpath are also unaffected.
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18       If  newpath already exists it will be atomically replaced (subject to a
19       few conditions; see ERRORS below), so that there is no point  at  which
20       another process attempting to access newpath will find it missing.
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22       If  oldpath  and  newpath are existing hard links referring to the same
23       file, then rename() does nothing, and returns a success status.
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25       If newpath exists but the operation  fails  for  some  reason  rename()
26       guarantees to leave an instance of newpath in place.
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28       oldpath can specify a directory.  In this case, newpath must either not
29       exist, or it must specify an empty directory.
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31       However, when overwriting there will probably be a window in which both
32       oldpath and newpath refer to the file being renamed.
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34       If  oldpath  refers  to a symbolic link the link is renamed; if newpath
35       refers to a symbolic link the link will be overwritten.
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RETURN VALUE

38       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
39       set appropriately.
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ERRORS

42       EACCES Write  permission is denied for the directory containing oldpath
43              or newpath, or, search permission  is  denied  for  one  of  the
44              directories in the path prefix of oldpath or newpath, or oldpath
45              is a directory and does not allow write  permission  (needed  to
46              update the ..  entry).  (See also path_resolution(7).)
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48       EBUSY  The  rename fails because oldpath or newpath is a directory that
49              is in use by some process (perhaps as current working directory,
50              or  as root directory, or because it was open for reading) or is
51              in use by the system (for example as  mount  point),  while  the
52              system considers this an error.  (Note that there is no require‐
53              ment to return EBUSY in such cases — there is nothing wrong with
54              doing  the  rename anyway — but it is allowed to return EBUSY if
55              the system cannot otherwise handle such situations.)
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57       EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.
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59       EINVAL The new pathname contained a path prefix of the  old,  or,  more
60              generally,  an  attempt was made to make a directory a subdirec‐
61              tory of itself.
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63       EISDIR newpath is an existing directory, but oldpath is  not  a  direc‐
64              tory.
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66       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving oldpath or
67              newpath.
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69       EMLINK oldpath already has the maximum number of links to it, or it was
70              a directory and the directory containing newpath has the maximum
71              number of links.
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73       ENAMETOOLONG
74              oldpath or newpath was too long.
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76       ENOENT The link named by oldpath does not exist; or, a directory compo‐
77              nent  in  newpath  does  not exist; or, oldpath or newpath is an
78              empty string.
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80       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
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82       ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
83              entry.
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85       ENOTDIR
86              A component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in
87              fact, a directory.  Or, oldpath  is  a  directory,  and  newpath
88              exists but is not a directory.
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90       ENOTEMPTY or EEXIST
91              newpath  is  a  non-empty  directory,  that is, contains entries
92              other than "." and "..".
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94       EPERM or EACCES
95              The directory containing oldpath has the  sticky  bit  (S_ISVTX)
96              set  and  the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID
97              of the file to be deleted nor that of the  directory  containing
98              it,  and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the
99              CAP_FOWNER capability); or newpath is an existing file  and  the
100              directory containing it has the sticky bit set and the process's
101              effective user ID is neither the user  ID  of  the  file  to  be
102              replaced  nor  that  of  the  directory  containing  it, and the
103              process is not privileged (Linux: does not have  the  CAP_FOWNER
104              capability);  or  the  file  system containing pathname does not
105              support renaming of the type requested.
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107       EROFS  The file is on a read-only file system.
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109       EXDEV  oldpath and newpath are not on the  same  mounted  file  system.
110              (Linux  permits  a file system to be mounted at multiple points,
111              but rename() does not work across different mount  points,  even
112              if the same file system is mounted on both.)
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CONFORMING TO

115       4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001.
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BUGS

118       On  NFS  file  systems, you can not assume that if the operation failed
119       the file was not renamed.  If the server does the rename operation  and
120       then  crashes,  the  retransmitted RPC which will be processed when the
121       server is up again causes a failure.  The application  is  expected  to
122       deal with this.  See link(2) for a similar problem.
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SEE ALSO

125       mv(1), chmod(2), link(2), renameat(2), symlink(2), unlink(2), path_res‐
126       olution(7), symlink(7)
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COLOPHON

129       This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
130       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
131       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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135Linux                             2009-03-30                         RENAME(2)
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