rmdir(S)                       6 January 1993                       rmdir(S)


 Name

    rmdir - remove a directory

 Syntax


    cc ... -lc


    int rmdir (path)
    char *path;


 Description

    rmdir removes the directory named by the pathname pointed to by path.
    The directory must not have any entries other than ``.'' and ``..''.

    A directory is not removed when all of the following conditions are true:

    +  the parent directory has the sticky bit set

    +  the parent directory is not owned by the user

    +  the directory is not owned by the user

    +  the directory is not writable by the user

    +  the user is not super user


 Return value

    Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value
    of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

 Diagnostics

    The rmdir function will fail if:

    [EACCES]


                   +  Search permission is denied for a component of the path
                      prefix.

                   +  Write permission is denied on the directory containing
                      the directory to be removed.

    [EBUSY]        The directory to be removed is the mount point for a
                   mounted filesystem.

    [EEXIST]       The directory contains entries other than those for ``.''
                   and``..''.

    [EFAULT]       path points outside the process's allocated address space.

    [EINVAL]


                   +  The current directory may not be removed.

                   +  The ``.'' entry of a directory may not be removed.

    [EIO]          An I/O error occurred while accessing the filesystem.

    [EMULTIHOP]    Components of path require hopping to multiple remote ma-
                   chines.

    [ENOENT]       The named directory does not exist.

    [ENOLINK]      path points to a remote machine, and the link to that ma-
                   chine is no longer active.

    [ENOTDIR]      A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

    [EROFS]        The directory entry to be removed is part of a read-only
                   filesystem.


 See also

    mkdir(C), mkdir(S), rmdir(C), rm(C)

 Standards conformance

    rmdir is conformant with:
    AT&T SVID Issue 2;
    X/Open Portability Guide, Issue 3, 1989;
    IEEE POSIX Std 1003.1-1990 System Application Program Interface (API) [C
    Language] (ISO/IEC 9945-1); and NIST FIPS 151-1.