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

NAME

       rename, renameat, renameat2 - change the name or location of a file

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdio.h>

       int rename(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);

       #include <fcntl.h>	    /* Definition of AT_* constants */
       #include <stdio.h>

       int renameat(int olddirfd, const char *oldpath,
		    int newdirfd, const char *newpath);

       int renameat2(int olddirfd, const char *oldpath,
		     int newdirfd, const char *newpath, unsigned int flags);

       Note: There is no glibc wrapper for renameat2(); see NOTES.

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       renameat():
	   Since glibc 2.10:
	       _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
	   Before glibc 2.10:
	       _ATFILE_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       rename()  renames a file, moving it between directories if required.  Any other hard links to the file (as created using link(2)) are unaf-
       fected.	Open file descriptors for oldpath are also unaffected.

       Various restrictions determine whether or not the rename operation succeeds: see ERRORS below.

       If newpath already exists, it will be atomically replaced, so that there is no point at which another process attempting to access  newpath
       will find it missing.  However, there will probably be a window in which both oldpath and newpath refer to the file being renamed.

       If oldpath and newpath are existing hard links referring to the same file, then rename() does nothing, and returns a success status.

       If newpath exists but the operation fails for some reason, rename() guarantees to leave an instance of newpath in place.

       oldpath can specify a directory.  In this case, newpath must either not exist, or it must specify an empty directory.

       If oldpath refers to a symbolic link, the link is renamed; if newpath refers to a symbolic link, the link will be overwritten.

   renameat()
       The renameat() system call operates in exactly the same way as rename(), except for the differences described here.

       If  the pathname given in oldpath is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor olddirfd
       (rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling process, as is done by rename() for a relative pathname).

       If oldpath is relative and olddirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then oldpath is interpreted relative to the current working directory of
       the calling process (like rename()).

       If oldpath is absolute, then olddirfd is ignored.

       The  interpretation  of	newpath is as for oldpath, except that a relative pathname is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by
       the file descriptor newdirfd.

       See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for renameat().

   renameat2()
       renameat2() has an additional flags argument.  A renameat2() call with a zero flags argument is equivalent to renameat().

       The flags argument is a bit mask consisting of zero or more of the following flags:

       RENAME_EXCHANGE
	      Atomically exchange oldpath and newpath.	Both pathnames must exist but may be of different types (e.g., one could  be  a  non-empty
	      directory and the other a symbolic link).

       RENAME_NOREPLACE
	      Don't overwrite newpath of the rename.  Return an error if newpath already exists.

	      RENAME_NOREPLACE can't be employed together with RENAME_EXCHANGE.

       RENAME_WHITEOUT (since Linux 3.18)
	      This operation makes sense only for overlay/union filesystem implementations.

	      Specifying  RENAME_WHITEOUT  creates a "whiteout" object at the source of the rename at the same time as performing the rename.  The
	      whole operation is atomic, so that if the rename succeeds then the whiteout will also have been created.

	      A "whiteout" is an object that has special meaning in union/overlay filesystem constructs.  In  these  constructs,  multiple  layers
	      exist and only the top one is ever modified.  A whiteout on an upper layer will effectively hide a matching file in the lower layer,
	      making it appear as if the file didn't exist.

	      When a file that exists on the lower layer is renamed, the file is first copied up (if not already on  the  upper  layer)  and  then
	      renamed  on  the	upper,	read-write  layer.  At the same time, the source file needs to be "whiteouted" (so that the version of the
	      source file in the lower layer is rendered invisible).  The whole operation needs to be done atomically.

	      When not part of a union/overlay, the whiteout appears as a character device with a {0,0} device number.

	      RENAME_WHITEOUT requires the same privileges as creating a device node (i.e., the CAP_MKNOD capability).

	      RENAME_WHITEOUT can't be employed together with RENAME_EXCHANGE.

	      RENAME_WHITEOUT requires support from the underlying filesystem.	Among the filesystems that provide that support are  shmem  (since
	      Linux 3.18), ext4 (since Linux 3.18), and XFS (since Linux 4.1).

RETURN VALUE

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

ERRORS

       EACCES Write  permission is denied for the directory containing oldpath or newpath, or, search permission is denied for one of the directo-
	      ries in the path prefix of oldpath or newpath, or oldpath is a directory and does not allow write permission (needed to  update  the
	      ..  entry).  (See also path_resolution(7).)

       EBUSY  The  rename fails because oldpath or newpath is a directory that is in use by some process (perhaps as current working directory, or
	      as root directory, or because it was open for reading) or is in use by the system (for example as mount  point),	while  the  system
	      considers  this  an  error.  (Note that there is no requirement to return EBUSY in such cases--there is nothing wrong with doing the
	      rename anyway--but it is allowed to return EBUSY if the system cannot otherwise handle such situations.)

       EDQUOT The user's quota of disk blocks on the filesystem has been exhausted.

       EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL The new pathname contained a path prefix of the old, or, more generally, an attempt was made to make a directory a  subdirectory	of
	      itself.

       EISDIR newpath is an existing directory, but oldpath is not a directory.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving oldpath or newpath.

       EMLINK oldpath  already	has  the maximum number of links to it, or it was a directory and the directory containing newpath has the maximum
	      number of links.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      oldpath or newpath was too long.

       ENOENT The link named by oldpath does not exist; or, a directory component in newpath does not exist; or, oldpath or newpath  is  an  empty
	      string.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry.

       ENOTDIR
	      A  component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in fact, a directory.  Or, oldpath is a directory, and newpath exists
	      but is not a directory.

       ENOTEMPTY or EEXIST
	      newpath is a nonempty directory, that is, contains entries other than "." and "..".

       EPERM or EACCES
	      The directory containing oldpath has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX) set and the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID of  the
	      file  to	be deleted nor that of the directory containing it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER
	      capability); or newpath is an existing file and the directory containing it has the sticky bit set and the process's effective  user
	      ID  is  neither  the  user  ID of the file to be replaced nor that of the directory containing it, and the process is not privileged
	      (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER capability); or the filesystem containing pathname  does  not  support  renaming  of  the  type
	      requested.

       EROFS  The file is on a read-only filesystem.

       EXDEV  oldpath  and  newpath  are  not  on  the same mounted filesystem.  (Linux permits a filesystem to be mounted at multiple points, but
	      rename() does not work across different mount points, even if the same filesystem is mounted on both.)

       The following additional errors can occur for renameat() and renameat2():

       EBADF  olddirfd or newdirfd is not a valid file descriptor.

       ENOTDIR
	      oldpath is relative and olddirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other  than  a	directory;  or	similar  for  newpath  and
	      newdirfd

       The following additional errors can occur for renameat2():

       EEXIST flags contains RENAME_NOREPLACE and newpath already exists.

       EINVAL An invalid flag was specified in flags.

       EINVAL Both RENAME_NOREPLACE and RENAME_EXCHANGE were specified in flags.

       EINVAL Both RENAME_WHITEOUT and RENAME_EXCHANGE were specified in flags.

       EINVAL The filesystem does not support one of the flags in flags.

       ENOENT flags contains RENAME_EXCHANGE and newpath does not exist.

       EPERM  RENAME_WHITEOUT was specified in flags, but the caller does not have the CAP_MKNOD capability.

VERSIONS

       renameat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was added to glibc in version 2.4.

       renameat2() was added to Linux in kernel 3.15.

CONFORMING TO

       rename(): 4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

       renameat(): POSIX.1-2008.

       renameat2() is Linux-specific.

NOTES

       Glibc does not provide a wrapper for the renameat2() system call; call it using syscall(2).

   Glibc notes
       On  older  kernels where renameat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of rename().  When oldpath and newpath
       are relative pathnames, glibc constructs pathnames based on the symbolic links  in  /proc/self/fd  that	correspond  to	the  olddirfd  and
       newdirfd arguments.

BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

       mv(1), chmod(2), link(2), symlink(2), unlink(2), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)

COLOPHON

       This  page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux								    2017-09-15								 RENAME(2)