DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

UNLINK(2)                DragonFly System Calls Manual               UNLINK(2)

NAME
     unlink -- remove directory entry

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     unlink(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION
     The unlink() function removes the link named by path from its directory
     and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by the
     link.  If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and
     no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file
     are reclaimed.  If one or more process have the file open when the last
     link is removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is
     delayed until all references to it have been closed.  path may not be a
     directory.

RETURN VALUES
     The unlink() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS
     The unlink() succeeds unless:

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

     [ENAMETOOLONG]     A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or
                        an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.

     [ENOENT]           The named file does not exist.

     [EACCES]           Search permission is denied for a component of the
                        path prefix.

     [EACCES]           Write permission is denied on the directory containing
                        the link to be removed.

     [ELOOP]            Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat-
                        ing the pathname.

     [EPERM]            The named file has its immutable or append-only flag
                        set (see chflags(2)).

     [EPERM]            The named file is a directory.

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

     [EBUSY]            The entry to be unlinked 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 named file resides on a read-only file system.

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

SEE ALSO
     close(2), link(2), rmdir(2), unlinkat(2), symlink(7)

HISTORY
     An unlink() function call appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

     The unlink() system call traditionally allows the super-user to unlink
     directories which can damage the filesystem integrity.  This implementa-
     tion no longer permits it.

DragonFly 3.5                   August 18, 2009                  DragonFly 3.5