rename(2)

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(2).)
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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 A directory component in oldpath  or  newpath does not exist  or
77              is a dangling symbolic link.
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79       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
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81       ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
82              entry.
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84       ENOTDIR
85              A component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in
86              fact,  a  directory.   Or,  oldpath  is a directory, and newpath
87              exists but is not a directory.
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89       ENOTEMPTY or EEXIST
90              newpath is a non-empty directory, i.e., contains  entries  other
91              than "." and "..".
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93       EPERM or EACCES
94              The  directory  containing  oldpath has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX)
95              set and the process's effective user ID is neither the  user  ID
96              of  the  file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing
97              it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have  the
98              CAP_FOWNER  capability);  or newpath is an existing file and the
99              directory containing it has the sticky bit set and the process's
100              effective  user  ID  is  neither  the  user ID of the file to be
101              replaced nor that  of  the  directory  containing  it,  and  the
102              process  is  not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER
103              capability); or the filesystem containing pathname does not sup‐
104              port renaming of the type requested.
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106       EROFS  The file is on a read-only filesystem.
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108       EXDEV  oldpath  and  newpath  are  not  on the same mounted filesystem.
109              (Linux permits a filesystem to be mounted  at  multiple  points,
110              but  rename(2) does not work across different mount points, even
111              if the same filesystem is mounted on both.)
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CONFORMING TO

114       4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001.
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BUGS

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