CHDIR(2,L) AIX Technical Reference CHDIR(2,L)
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chdir
PURPOSE
Changes the current directory.
SYNTAX
int chdir (path)
char *path;
DESCRIPTION
The chdir system call changes the current directory to the directory specified
by the path parameter. The current directory, also called the current working
directory, is the starting point of searches for path names that do not begin
with a "/" (slash).
Warning: After changing into a directory that uses a symbolic link, attempts
to traverse the tree using ".." may produce unexpected results. ".." refers to
the hard link parent of the directory, obtained by deleting the last element
from path, not the symbolic link parent.
Note: If the working directory is a directory stored only on sites which are
no longer available, it is not possible to use chdir to change into its
subdirectories and using chdir .. to change to the parent directory will
only work if the parent directory is stored on an available site.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, the chdir system call returns a value of 0. If the
chdir system call fails, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate
the error.
ERROR CONDITIONS
The chdir system call fails and the current directory remains unchanged if one
or more of the following are true:
ENOTDIR A component of the path parameter is not a directory.
ENOENT The named directory does not exist.
EACCES Search permission is denied for any component of the path parameter.
EFAULT The path parameter points to a location outside of the process's
allocated address space.
Processed November 7, 1990 CHDIR(2,L) 1
CHDIR(2,L) AIX Technical Reference CHDIR(2,L)
ESTALE The process's root or current directory is located in an NFS virtual
file system that has been unmounted.
ENAMETOOLONG
A component of the path parameter exceeded NAME_MAX characters or the
entire path parameter exceeded PATH_MAX characters.
ENOENT A hidden directory was named, but no component inside it matched the
process's current site path list.
ENOENT A symbolic link was named, but the file to which is refers does not
exist.
ELOOP A loop of symbolic links was detected.
If the Transparent Computing Facility is installed on your system, chdir can
also fail if one or more of the following are true:
ESITEDN1 The path cannot be accessed because a site went down.
ESITEDN2 The operation was terminated because a site failed.
ENOSTORE The path is a name relative to the current directory, but no site
which stores this directory is currently up.
ENOSTORE A component of path is replicated but is not stored on any site which
is currently up.
EINTR A signal was caught during the chdir system call.
RELATED INFORMATION
In this book: "chroot."
The cd command in AIX Operating System Commands Reference.
Processed November 7, 1990 CHDIR(2,L) 2