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RENAME(2) System Calls Manual RENAME(2)

rename, renameat — change the name of a file

library “libc”

#include <stdio.h>

int
rename(const char *from, const char *to);

int
renameat(int fromfd, const char *from, int tofd, const char *to);

() causes the link named from to be renamed as to. If to exists, it is first removed. Both from and to must be of the same type (that is, both directories or both non-directories), and must reside on the same file system.

() guarantees that if to already exists, an instance of to will always exist, even if the system should crash in the middle of the operation.

If the final component of from is a symbolic link, the symbolic link is renamed, not the file or directory to which it points.

The () system call is equivalent to () except in the case where either from or to specifies a relative path. If from is a relative path, the file to be renamed is located relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor fromfd instead of the current working directory. If the to is a relative path, the same happens only relative to the directory associated with tofd. If the renameat() is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in the fromfd or tofd parameter, the current working directory is used in the determination of the file for the respective path parameter.

The rename() and renameat() functions return the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

Rename() will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:

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A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters, or the entire length of either path name exceeded 1023 characters.
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A component of the from path does not exist, or a path prefix of to does not exist.
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A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
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The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode that denies write permission.
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The directory containing from is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor from are owned by the effective user ID.
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The to file exists, the directory containing to is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor to are owned by the effective user ID.
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Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating either pathname.
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A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
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from is a directory, but to is not a directory.
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to is a directory, but from is not a directory.
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The link named by to and the file named by from are on different logical devices (file systems). Note that this error code will not be returned if the implementation permits cross-device links.
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The directory in which the entry for the new name is being placed cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing the directory.
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The directory in which the entry for the new name is being placed cannot be extended because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted.
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An I/O error occurred while making or updating a directory entry.
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The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file system.
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points outside the process's allocated address space.
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From is a parent directory of to, or an attempt is made to rename ‘.’ or ‘..’.
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To is a directory and is not empty.

In addition to the errors returned by the rename(), the renameat() may fail if:

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The from argument does not specify an absolute path and the fromfd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for searching, or the to argument does not specify an absolute path and the tofd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
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The from argument is not an absolute path and fromfd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated with a directory, or the to argument is not an absolute path and tofd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.

open(2), symlink(7)

The rename() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”). The renameat() system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.

The renameat() system call appeared in DragonFly 2.7.

July 31, 2010 DragonFly-5.6.1