rmdir(2)                      System Calls Manual                     rmdir(2)

NAME
       rmdir - delete a directory

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int rmdir(const char *pathname);

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 pathname was not
              allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of
              pathname did not allow search permission.  (See also
              path_resolution(7).)

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

       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL pathname has .  as last component.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              pathname was too long.

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

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

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

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

       EPERM  The directory containing pathname 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 pathname does not support the removal
              of directories.

       EROFS  pathname 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)

Linux man-pages 6.7               2023-10-31                          rmdir(2)