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rmdir

Section: System Calls (2)
Updated: 202-0-08
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rmdir - delete a directory

Standard C library (libc,~-lc)

#include <unistd.h>
int rmdir(const char *path);

rmdir() deletes a directory, which must be empty.

On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

EACCES: Write access to the directory containing path was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of path did not allow search permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EBUSY: path is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its removal. On Linux, this means path is currently used as a mount point or is the root directory of the calling process.
EFAULT: path points outside your accessible address space.
EINVAL: path has . as last component.
ELOOP: Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.
ENAMETOOLONG: path was too long.
ENOENT: A directory component in path does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
ENOMEM: Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR: path, or a component used as a directory in path, is not, in fact, a directory.
ENOTEMPTY: path contains entries other than . and ..; or, path has .. as its final component. POSIX.1 also allows EEXIST for this condition.
EPERM: The directory containing path 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).
EPERM: The filesystem containing path does not support the removal of directories.
EROFS: path refers to a directory on a rea-only filesystem.

POSIX.-2024.

POSIX.-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected disappearance of directories which are still being used.