NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

CHDIR(2)                  Linux Programmer's Manual                 CHDIR(2)

NAME         top

       chdir, fchdir - change working directory

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <unistd.h>
       int chdir(const char *path);
       int fchdir(int fd);
   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
       fchdir():
           _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
               || /* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
               || /* Glibc up to and including 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION         top

       chdir() changes the current working directory of the calling process
       to the directory specified in path.
       fchdir() is identical to chdir(); the only difference is that the
       directory is given as an open file descriptor.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
       set appropriately.

ERRORS         top

       Depending on the filesystem, other errors can be returned.  The more
       general errors for chdir() are listed below:
       EACCES Search permission is denied for one of the components of path.
              (See also path_resolution(7).)
       EFAULT path points outside your accessible address space.
       EIO    An I/O error occurred.
       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.
       ENAMETOOLONG
              path is too long.
       ENOENT The directory specified in path does not exist.
       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
       ENOTDIR
              A component of path is not a directory.
       The general errors for fchdir() are listed below:
       EACCES Search permission was denied on the directory open on fd.
       EBADF  fd is not a valid file descriptor.

CONFORMING TO         top

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.4BSD.

NOTES         top

       The current working directory is the starting point for interpreting
       relative pathnames (those not starting with '/').
       A child process created via fork(2) inherits its parent's current
       working directory.  The current working directory is left unchanged
       by execve(2).

SEE ALSO         top

       chroot(2), getcwd(3), path_resolution(7)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux                            2016-03-15                         CHDIR(2)

Pages that refer to this page: chroot(2)clone(2)open(2)pivot_root(2)rmdir(2)syscalls(2)unshare(2)dirfd(3)fts(3)ftw(3)getcwd(3)cpuset(7)path_resolution(7)pthreads(7)signal-safety(7)