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)
