June 4, 1993 RMDIR 2

### NAME

rmdir - remove a directory file

### LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

### SYNOPSIS

```int` rmdir(```const char *path`)

### DESCRIPTION

rmdir(``) removes a directory file whose name is given by ```path`. The directory must not have any entries other than `.' and `..'.

### RETURN VALUES

A 0 is returned if the remove succeeds; otherwise a -1 is returned and an error code is stored in the global location errno.

### ERRORS

The named file is removed unless:

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

[```ENAMETOOLONG`]
  A component of a pathname exceeded ```{NAME_MAX}` characters, or an entire path name exceeded ```{PATH_MAX}` characters.

[```ENOENT`]
  The named directory does not exist.

[```ELOOP`]
  Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

[```ENOTEMPTY`]
  The named directory contains files other than `.' and `..' in it.

[```EACCES`]
  Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix, or write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed.

[```EPERM`]
  The directory containing the directory to be removed is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the directory to be removed are owned by the effective user ID.

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

[```EIO`]
  An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode.

[```EROFS`]
  The directory entry to be removed resides on a read-only file system.

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

### SEE ALSO

mkdir(2), unlink(2)

### STANDARDS

The rmdir(``) function conforms to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (``POSIX.1'') .

### HISTORY

The rmdir(``) function call appeared in 4.2BSD.