NAME
unlink
, unlinkat
— remove directory
entry
LIBRARY
library “libc”
SYNOPSIS
#include
<unistd.h>
int
unlink
(const
char *path);
#include
<fcntl.h>
int
unlinkat
(int
fd, const char
*path, int
flag);
DESCRIPTION
Theunlink
()
function removes the link named by path from its
directory and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by
the link. If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and no
process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are
reclaimed. If one or more process have the file open when the last link is
removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is delayed until all
references to it have been closed.
unlinkat
()
works the same way as unlink
() except if
path is relative. In that case, it is looked up from a
directory whose file descriptor was passed as fd.
Search permission is required on this directory. fd
can be set to AT_FDCWD
in order to specify the
current directory.
unlinkat
()
will remove directories just like
rmdir(2), provided AT_REMOVEDIR
is set in
flag.
RETURN VALUES
The unlink
() and
unlinkat
() functions return the value 0 if
successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global
variable errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The unlink
() and
unlinkat
() functions succeed unless:
- [
EACCES
] - Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix, or write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed.
- [
EBUSY
] - The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system.
- [
EFAULT
] - path points outside the process's allocated address space.
- [
EIO
] - An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode.
- [
ELOOP
] - Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
- [
ENAMETOOLONG
] - A component of a pathname exceeded {
NAME_MAX
} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX
} characters. - [
ENOENT
] - The named file does not exist.
- [
ENOTDIR
] - A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
- [
EPERM
] - The named file is a directory and the effective user ID of the process is
not the super-user, the file system containing the file does not permit
the use of
unlink
() on a directory, or the directory containing the file is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed are owned by the effective user ID. - [
EROFS
] - The named file resides on a read-only file system.
In addition, unlinkat
() will fail if:
- [
EBADF
] - path does not specify an absolute path and
fd is neither
AT_FDCWD
nor a valid file descriptor open for reading or searching. - [
ENOTDIR
] - path is not an absolute path and
fd is a file descriptor associated with a
non-directory file; or flag has
AT_REMOVEDIR
set and path does not name a directory. - [
ENOTEMPTY
] - flag has
AT_REMOVEDIR
set and path is a directory that is not empty.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The unlink
() function conforms to
IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 (“POSIX.1”).
unlinkat
() conforms to IEEE Std
1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
An unlink
() function call appeared in
Version 1 AT&T UNIX.