NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON
UNLINK(2) Linux Programmer's Manual UNLINK(2)
unlink - delete a name and possibly the file it refers to
#include <unistd.h>
int unlink(const char *pathname);
unlink() deletes a name from the file system. 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.
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 (not on Linux)
The file pathname cannot be unlinked because it is being used by the
system or another process and the implementation considers this an
error.
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 file system 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).
EROFS pathname refers to a file on a read-only file system.
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of files which are still being used.
rm(1), chmod(2), link(2), mknod(2), open(2), rename(2), rmdir(2), unlinkat(2),
mkfifo(3), remove(3), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)
This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2004-06-23 UNLINK(2)