unlink(2) [bsd man page]
UNLINK(2) System Calls Manual UNLINK(2) NAME
unlink - remove directory entry SYNOPSIS
unlink(path) char *path; DESCRIPTION
Unlink removes the entry for the file path from its directory. If this entry was the last link to the file, and no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are reclaimed. If, however, the file was open in any process, the actual resource recla- mation is delayed until it is closed, even though the directory entry has disappeared. RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS
The unlink succeeds unless: [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [EINVAL] The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. [EACCES] Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EPERM] The named file is a directory and the effective user ID of the process is not the super-user. [EPERM] The directory containing the file is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed are owned by the effective user ID. [EBUSY] The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode. [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. [EFAULT] Path points outside the process's allocated address space. SEE ALSO
close(2), link(2), rmdir(2) 4th Berkeley Distribution May 22, 1985 UNLINK(2)
Check Out this Related Man Page
UNLINK(2) BSD System Calls Manual UNLINK(2) NAME
unlink -- remove directory entry SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> int unlink(const char *path); DESCRIPTION
The unlink() function removes the link named by path from its directory and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by the link. If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are reclaimed. If one or more process have the file open when the last link is removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is delayed until all references to it have been closed. RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS
The unlink() succeeds unless: [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. [EACCES] Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EPERM] The named file is a directory and the effective user ID of the process is not the super-user. [EPERM] The directory containing the file is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed are owned by the effective user ID. [EBUSY] The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode. [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. [EFAULT] Path points outside the process's allocated address space. SEE ALSO
close(2), link(2), rmdir(2) symlink(7) HISTORY
An unlink() function call appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. 4th Berkeley Distribution June 4, 1993 4th Berkeley Distribution