rmdir(2) - f14

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

6       rmdir - delete a directory
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SYNOPSIS

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

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

17       On  success,  zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
18       set appropriately.
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ERRORS

21       EACCES Write access  to  the  directory  containing  pathname  was  not
22              allowed,  or  one of the directories in the path prefix of path‐
23              name did not allow search permission.   (See  also  path_resolu‐
24              tion(7).
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26       EBUSY  pathname  is currently in use by the system or some process that
27              prevents its removal.  On Linux this means pathname is currently
28              used  as  a  mount point or is the root directory of the calling
29              process.
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31       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.
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33       EINVAL pathname has .  as last component.
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35       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.
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37       ENAMETOOLONG
38              pathname was too long.
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40       ENOENT A directory component in pathname does not exist or  is  a  dan‐
41              gling symbolic link.
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43       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
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45       ENOTDIR
46              pathname,  or  a  component  used as a directory in pathname, is
47              not, in fact, a directory.
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49       ENOTEMPTY
50              pathname contains entries other than . and .. ; or, pathname has
51              ..  as its final component.  POSIX.1-2001 also allows EEXIST for
52              this condition.
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54       EPERM  The directory containing pathname has the sticky  bit  (S_ISVTX)
55              set  and  the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID
56              of the file to be deleted nor that of the  directory  containing
57              it,  and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the
58              CAP_FOWNER capability).
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60       EPERM  The file system containing pathname does not support the removal
61              of directories.
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63       EROFS  pathname refers to a directory on a read-only file system.
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CONFORMING TO

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

69       Infelicities  in  the  protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
70       disappearance of directories which are still being used.
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COLOPHON

77       This  page  is  part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
78       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
79       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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83Linux                             2008-05-08                          RMDIR(2)