UNLINK(2-POSIX)     RISC/os Reference Manual      UNLINK(2-POSIX)



NAME
     unlink - remove directory entry

SYNOPSIS
     int unlink (path)
     char *path;

DESCRIPTION
     unlink removes the directory entry named by the path name
     pointed to by path.

     path must not specify a directory unless the process' effec-
     tive user ID is the superuser.  Applications should use
     rmdir to remove a directory.

     When all links to a file have been removed and no process
     has the file open, the space occupied by the file is freed
     and the file ceases to exist.  If one or more processes have
     the file open when the last link is removed, the removal is
     postponed until all references to the file have been closed.

     Upon successful completion, the unlink function marks for
     update the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the parent direc-
     tory.  Also, if the file's link count is not zero, the
     st_ctime field of the file is marked for update.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Oth-
     erwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indi-
     cate the error.

ERRORS
     The named file is not unlinked if one or more of the follow-
     ing are true:

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

     [ENOENT]            The named file does not exist.

     [EACCES]            Search permission is denied for a com-
                         ponent of the path prefix, or write per-
                         mission is denied on the directory con-
                         taining the link to be removed.

     [EPERM]             The named file is a directory and the
                         effective user ID of the process is not
                         super-user.

     [EBUSY]             The entry to be unlinked is the mount
                         point for a mounted file system.




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UNLINK(2-POSIX)     RISC/os Reference Manual      UNLINK(2-POSIX)



     [ETXTBSY]           The entry to be unlinked is the last
                         link to a pure procedure (shared text)
                         file that is being executed.

     [EROFS]             The directory entry to be unlinked is
                         part of a read-only file system.

     [EFAULT]            path points outside the process's allo-
                         cated address space.

     [EINTR]             A signal was caught during the unlink
                         system call.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]      The length of path exceeds {PATH_MAX},
                         or a pathname component is longer than
                         {NAME_MAX} while {_POSIX_NO_TRUNC} is in
                         effect.

SEE ALSO
     close(2), link(2), open(2), rename(2), rmdir(2).
     rm(1) in the User's Reference Manual.


































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