RMDIR(2) System Calls Manual RMDIR(2)

NAME

rmdirremove a directory file

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>
int
rmdir(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION

rmdir() removes a directory file whose name is given by path. The directory must not have any entries other than ‘.’ and ‘..’.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The named file is removed unless:
 
 
[EACCES]
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix, or write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed.
 
 
[EBUSY]
The directory to be removed is the mount point for a mounted file system.
 
 
[EFAULT]
path points outside the process's allocated address space.
 
 
[EINVAL]
The last component of the path is ‘.’.
 
 
[EIO]
An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode.
 
 
[ELOOP]
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
 
 
[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.
 
 
[ENOENT]
The named directory does not exist.
 
 
[ENOTDIR]
A component of the path is not a directory.
 
 
[ENOTEMPTY]
The named directory contains files other than ‘.’ and ‘..’ in it.
 
 
[EPERM]
The directory containing the directory to be removed is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the directory to be removed are owned by the effective user ID.
 
 
[EROFS]
The directory entry to be removed resides on a read-only file system.

SEE ALSO

mkdir(2), unlink(2)

STANDARDS

The rmdir() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY

The rmdir() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.
October 11, 2014 NetBSD 8.3