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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
UNLINK(2) Linux Programmer's Manual UNLINK(2)
unlink, unlinkat - delete a name and possibly the file it refers to
#include <unistd.h>
int unlink(const char *pathname);
#include <fcntl.h> /* Definition of AT_* constants */
#include <unistd.h>
int unlinkat(int dirfd, const char *pathname, int flags);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
unlinkat():
Since glibc 2.10:
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
Before glibc 2.10:
_ATFILE_SOURCE
unlink() deletes a name from the filesystem. If that name was the
last link to a file and no processes have the file open, the file is
deleted and the space it was using is made available for reuse.
If the name was the last link to a file but any processes still have
the file open, the file will remain in existence until the last file
descriptor referring to it is closed.
If the name referred to a symbolic link, the link is removed.
If the name referred to a socket, FIFO, or device, the name for it is
removed but processes which have the object open may continue to use
it.
unlinkat()
The unlinkat() system call operates in exactly the same way as either
unlink() or rmdir(2) (depending on whether or not flags includes the
AT_REMOVEDIR flag) except for the differences described here.
If the pathname given in pathname is relative, then it is interpreted
relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor dirfd
(rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling
process, as is done by unlink() and rmdir(2) for a relative
pathname).
If the pathname given in pathname is relative and dirfd is the
special value AT_FDCWD, then pathname is interpreted relative to the
current working directory of the calling process (like unlink() and
rmdir(2)).
If the pathname given in pathname is absolute, then dirfd is ignored.
flags is a bit mask that can either be specified as 0, or by ORing
together flag values that control the operation of unlinkat().
Currently, only one such flag is defined:
AT_REMOVEDIR
By default, unlinkat() performs the equivalent of unlink() on
pathname. If the AT_REMOVEDIR flag is specified, then
performs the equivalent of rmdir(2) on pathname.
See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for unlinkat().
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
set appropriately.
EACCES Write access to the directory containing pathname is not
allowed for the process's effective UID, or one of the
directories in pathname did not allow search permission. (See
also path_resolution(7).)
EBUSY The file pathname cannot be unlinked because it is being used
by the system or another process; for example, it is a mount
point or the NFS client software created it to represent an
active but otherwise nameless inode ("NFS silly renamed").
EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.
EIO An I/O error occurred.
EISDIR pathname refers to a directory. (This is the non-POSIX value
returned by Linux since 2.1.132.)
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating
pathname.
ENAMETOOLONG
pathname was too long.
ENOENT A component in pathname does not exist or is a dangling
symbolic link, or pathname is empty.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in pathname is not, in fact, a
directory.
EPERM The system does not allow unlinking of directories, or
unlinking of directories requires privileges that the calling
process doesn't have. (This is the POSIX prescribed error
return; as noted above, Linux returns EISDIR for this case.)
EPERM (Linux only)
The filesystem does not allow unlinking of files.
EPERM or EACCES
The directory containing pathname has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX)
set and the process's effective UID is neither the UID 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 file to be unlinked is marked immutable or append-only.
(See ioctl_iflags(2).)
EROFS pathname refers to a file on a read-only filesystem.
The same errors that occur for unlink() and rmdir(2) can also occur
for unlinkat(). The following additional errors can occur for
unlinkat():
EBADF dirfd is not a valid file descriptor.
EINVAL An invalid flag value was specified in flags.
EISDIR pathname refers to a directory, and AT_REMOVEDIR was not
specified in flags.
ENOTDIR
pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring
to a file other than a directory.
unlinkat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was
added to glibc in version 2.4.
unlink(): SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
unlinkat(): POSIX.1-2008.
Glibc notes
On older kernels where unlinkat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper
function falls back to the use of unlink() or rmdir(2). When
pathname is a relative pathname, glibc constructs a pathname based on
the symbolic link in /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd
argument.
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of files which are still being used.
rm(1), unlink(1), chmod(2), link(2), mknod(2), open(2), rename(2),
rmdir(2), mkfifo(3), remove(3), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)
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 2017-03-13 UNLINK(2)
Pages that refer to this page: chmod(2), close(2), fcntl(2), link(2), mkdir(2), mknod(2), open(2), rename(2), rmdir(2), symlink(2), syscalls(2), getcwd(3), remove(3), shm_open(3), inotify(7), signal-safety(7), symlink(7), unix(7), lsof(8)