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PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | EXAMPLES | APPLICATION USAGE | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |
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RMDIR(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual RMDIR(3P)
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The
Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
rmdir — remove a directory
#include <unistd.h>
int rmdir(const char *path);
The rmdir() function shall remove a directory whose name is given
by path. The directory shall be removed only if it is an empty
directory.
If the directory is the root directory or the current working
directory of any process, it is unspecified whether the function
succeeds, or whether it shall fail and set errno to [EBUSY].
If path names a symbolic link, then rmdir() shall fail and set
errno to [ENOTDIR].
If the path argument refers to a path whose final component is
either dot or dot-dot, rmdir() shall fail.
If the directory's link count becomes 0 and no process has the
directory open, the space occupied by the directory shall be freed
and the directory shall no longer be accessible. If one or more
processes have the directory open when the last link is removed,
the dot and dot-dot entries, if present, shall be removed before
rmdir() returns and no new entries may be created in the
directory, but the directory shall not be removed until all
references to the directory are closed.
If the directory is not an empty directory, rmdir() shall fail and
set errno to [EEXIST] or [ENOTEMPTY].
Upon successful completion, rmdir() shall mark for update the last
data modification and last file status change timestamps of the
parent directory.
Upon successful completion, the function rmdir() shall return 0.
Otherwise, -1 shall be returned, and errno set to indicate the
error. If -1 is returned, the named directory shall not be
changed.
The rmdir() function shall fail if:
EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path
prefix, or write permission is denied on the parent
directory of the directory to be removed.
EBUSY The directory to be removed is currently in use by the
system or some process and the implementation considers
this to be an error.
[EEXIST] or [ENOTEMPTY]
The path argument names a directory that is not an
empty directory, or there are hard links to the
directory other than dot or a single entry in dot-dot.
EINVAL The path argument contains a last component that is
dot.
EIO A physical I/O error has occurred.
ELOOP A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during
resolution of the path argument.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of a component of a pathname is longer than
{NAME_MAX}.
ENOENT A component of path does not name an existing file, or
the path argument names a nonexistent directory or
points to an empty string.
ENOTDIR A component of path names an existing file that is
neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a
directory.
[EPERM] or [EACCES]
The S_ISVTX flag is set on the directory containing
the file referred to by the path argument and the
process does not satisfy the criteria specified in the
Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 4.3,
Directory Protection.
EROFS The directory entry to be removed resides on a read-
only file system.
The rmdir() function may fail if:
ELOOP More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered
during resolution of the path argument.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or pathname
resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate
result with a length that exceeds {PATH_MAX}.
The following sections are informative.
Removing a Directory
The following example shows how to remove a directory named
/home/cnd/mod1.
#include <unistd.h>
int status;
...
status = rmdir("/home/cnd/mod1");
None.
The rmdir() and rename() functions originated in 4.2 BSD, and they
used [ENOTEMPTY] for the condition when the directory to be
removed does not exist or new already exists. When the 1984
/usr/group standard was published, it contained [EEXIST] instead.
When these functions were adopted into System V, the 1984
/usr/group standard was used as a reference. Therefore, several
existing applications and implementations support/use both forms,
and no agreement could be reached on either value. All
implementations are required to supply both [EEXIST] and
[ENOTEMPTY] in <errno.h> with distinct values, so that
applications can use both values in C-language case statements.
The meaning of deleting pathname/dot is unclear, because the name
of the file (directory) in the parent directory to be removed is
not clear, particularly in the presence of multiple links to a
directory.
The POSIX.1‐1990 standard was silent with regard to the behavior
of rmdir() when there are multiple hard links to the directory
being removed. The requirement to set errno to [EEXIST] or
[ENOTEMPTY] clarifies the behavior in this case.
If the current working directory of the process is being removed,
that should be an allowed error.
Virtually all existing implementations detect [ENOTEMPTY] or the
case of dot-dot. The text in Section 2.3, Error Numbers about
returning any one of the possible errors permits that behavior to
continue. The [ELOOP] error may be returned if more than
{SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links are encountered during resolution of
the path argument.
None.
Section 2.3, Error Numbers, mkdir(3p), remove(3p), rename(3p),
unlink(3p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 4.3,
Directory Protection, unistd.h(0p)
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
(C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between
this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard,
the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2017 RMDIR(3P)
Pages that refer to this page: unistd.h(0p), rm(1p), rmdir(1p), remove(3p), rename(3p), unlink(3p)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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