rmdir(2) System Calls Manual rmdir(2)
NAME
rmdir - Removes a directory file
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int rmdir ( const char *path );
STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:
rmdir(): XSH5.0
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.
PARAMETERS
Specifies the directory pathname. The final component of the path parameter cannot be a symbolic link.
DESCRIPTION
The rmdir() function removes the directory specified by the path parameter. The directory is removed only if it is an empty directory.
For the rmdir() function to execute successfully, the calling process must have write access to the parent directory of the path parameter
with respect to all of the system's access control policies.
If the directory's link count becomes 0 (zero) and no process has the directory open, the space occupied by the directory is freed and the
directory is no longer accessible. If one or more processes have the directory open when the last link is removed, the . (dot) and ..
(dot-dot) entries, if present, are removed before the rmdir() function returns, and no new entries may be created in the directory. How-
ever, the directory is not removed until all references to the directory have been closed.
Upon successful completion, the rmdir() function marks the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the parent directory for update.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, the rmdir() function returns a value of 0 (zero). If the rmdir() function fails, a value of -1 is returned and
errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
If the rmdir() function fails, the directory is not deleted and errno may be set to one of the following values: Search permission is
denied on a component of the path parameter, or write permission is denied on the parent directory of the directory to be removed. The
process does not have write access to the parent directory with respect to one of the system's access control policies. The directory is
in use as either the mount point for a file system or the current directory of the process that issued the rmdir() function. The directory
named by the path parameter is not empty. The path parameter is an invalid address. While reading from or writing to the file system, an
I/O error occurred. Too many links were encountered in translating path. The length of the path parameter exceeds PATH_MAX, or a pathname
component is longer than NAME_MAX. The directory named by the path parameter does not exist or is an empty string. A component of the
path parameter is not a directory. The S_ISVTX flag is set on the parent directory of the directory to be removed, and the caller is not
the file owner. The directory named by the path parameter resides on a read-only file system.
[Tru64 UNIX] For NFS file access, if the rmdir() function fails, errno may also be set to one of the following values: The file position
pointer associated with the filedes parameter was negative. Indicates either that the system file table is full, or that there are too
many files currently open in the system. Indicates a stale NFS file handle. An opened file was deleted by the server or another client; a
client cannot open a file because the server has unmounted or unexported the remote directory; or the directory that contains an opened
file was either unmounted or unexported by the server.
RELATED INFORMATION
Functions: chmod(2), mkdir(2), mknod(2), rename(2), umask(2), unlink(2), mkfifo(3), remove(3)
Standards: standards(5) delim off
rmdir(2)