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)