Penguin

NAME

rmdir - delete a directory

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int rmdir(const char *pathname);

DESCRIPTION

rmdir(2) 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.
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.
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.
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. Linux lets you remove the current working directory of a process, it will keep the directory around until the process exits. Linux will however complain if you try and remove a mountpoint that is in use.
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)

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