RMDIR
Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 24 July 1993
NAME
rmdir - delete a directory
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 appropriately.
ERRORS
- EPERM
-
The filesystem containing
pathname
does not support the removal of directories.
- EFAULT
-
pathname points outside your accessible address space.
- EACCES
-
Write access to the directory containing
pathname
was not allowed for the process's effective uid, or one of the
directories in
pathname
did not allow search (execute) permission.
- EPERM
-
The directory containing
pathname
has the sticky-bit
(S_ISVTX)
set and the process's effective uid is neither the uid of the file to
be deleted nor that of the directory containing it.
- ENAMETOOLONG
-
pathname was too long.
- ENOENT
-
A directory component in
pathname
does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
- ENOTDIR
-
pathname,
or a component used as a directory in
pathname,
is not, in fact, a directory.
- ENOTEMPTY
-
pathname
contains entries other than
. and .. .
- EBUSY
-
pathname
is the current working directory or root directory of some process.
- ENOMEM
-
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
- EROFS
-
pathname
refers to a file on a read-only filesystem.
- ELOOP
-
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
pathname.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, SVID, POSIX, BSD 4.3
BUGS
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of directories which are still being used.
SEE ALSO
rename(2),
mkdir(2),
chdir(2),
unlink(2),
rmdir(1),
rm(1)