linux man page for rmdir

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

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
       EACCES Write  access to the directory containing pathname was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of pathname did not
	      allow search permission.	(See also path_resolution(7).

       EBUSY  pathname is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its removal.  On Linux this  means  pathname  is  currently
	      used as a mount point or is the root directory of the calling process.

       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL pathname has .  as last component.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      pathname was too long.

       ENOENT A directory component in pathname does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       ENOTDIR
	      pathname, or a component used as a directory in pathname, is not, in fact, a directory.

       ENOTEMPTY
	      pathname	contains  entries  other than . and .. ; or, pathname has ..  as its final component.  POSIX.1-2001 also allows EEXIST for
	      this condition.

       EPERM  The directory containing pathname 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).

       EPERM  The file system containing pathname does not support the removal of directories.

       EROFS  pathname refers to a directory on a read-only file system.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

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

SEE ALSO
       rm(1), rmdir(1), chdir(2), chmod(2), mkdir(2), rename(2), unlink(2), unlinkat(2)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.27 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux								    2008-05-08								  RMDIR(2)