.\" Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH rmdir 2 2025-05-17 "Linux man-pages 6.15"
.SH NAME
rmdir \- delete a directory
.SH LIBRARY
Standard C library
.RI ( libc ,\~ \-lc )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <unistd.h>
.P
.BI "int rmdir(const char *" path );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR rmdir ()
deletes a directory, which must be empty.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned.
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EACCES
Write access to the directory containing
.I path
was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of
.I path
did not allow search permission.
(See also
.BR path_resolution (7).)
.TP
.B EBUSY
.I path
is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its
removal.
On Linux, this means
.I path
is currently used as a mount point
or is the root directory of the calling process.
.TP
.B EFAULT
.I path
points outside your accessible address space.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I path
has
.I .
as last component.
.TP
.B ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
.IR path .
.TP
.B ENAMETOOLONG
.I path
was too long.
.TP
.B ENOENT
A directory component in
.I path
does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
.TP
.B ENOTDIR
.IR path ,
or a component used as a directory in
.IR path ,
is not, in fact, a directory.
.TP
.B ENOTEMPTY
.I path
contains entries other than
.I .
and
.IR .. ;
or,
.I path
has
.I ..
as its final component.
POSIX.1 also allows
.\" POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008
.B EEXIST
for this condition.
.TP
.B EPERM
The directory containing
.I path
has the sticky bit
.RB ( 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
.B CAP_FOWNER
capability).
.TP
.B EPERM
The filesystem containing
.I path
does not support the removal of directories.
.TP
.B EROFS
.I path
refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.
.SH STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.
.SH HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
.SH BUGS
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of directories which are still being used.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR rm (1),
.BR rmdir (1),
.BR chdir (2),
.BR chmod (2),
.BR mkdir (2),
.BR rename (2),
.BR unlink (2),
.BR unlinkat (2)