NAME

rmdir - delete a directory

LIBRARY

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int rmdir(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION

rmdir() deletes a directory, which must be empty.

RETURN VALUE

On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

EACCES

Write access to the directory containing path was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of path did not allow search permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)

EBUSY

path is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its removal. On Linux, this means path is currently used as a mount point or is the root directory of the calling process.

EFAULT

path points outside your accessible address space.

EINVAL

path has . as last component.

ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.

ENAMETOOLONG

path was too long.

ENOENT

A directory component in path does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.

ENOMEM

Insufficient kernel memory was available.

ENOTDIR

path, or a component used as a directory in path, is not, in fact, a directory.

ENOTEMPTY

path contains entries other than . and ..; or, path has .. as its final component. POSIX.1 also allows EEXIST for this condition.

EPERM

The directory containing path has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX) set and the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID of the file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER capability).

EPERM

The filesystem containing path does not support the removal of directories.

EROFS

path refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.

STANDARDS

POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY

POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

BUGS

Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected disappearance of directories which are still being used.

SEE ALSO

rm(1), rmdir(1), chdir(2), chmod(2), mkdir(2), rename(2), unlink(2), unlinkat(2)