rmdir - delete a directory
#include <unistd.h>
int rmdir(const char *pathname
);
rmdir() deletes a directory, which must be empty.
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno
is set appropriately.
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).
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.
pathname
points outside your accessible address space.
pathname
has .
as last component.
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname
.
pathname
was too long.
A directory component in pathname
does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
pathname
, or a component used as a directory in pathname
, is not, in fact, a directory.
pathname
contains entries other than .
and ..
; or, pathname
has ..
as its final component. POSIX.1 also allows EEXIST for this condition.
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).
The filesystem containing pathname
does not support the removal of directories.
pathname
refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected disappearance of directories which are still being used.
This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages
project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.