rmdir(2)

NAME
rmdir - delete a directory

LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>

int rmdir(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION
rmdir() deletes a directory, which must be empty.

RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

EACCES
    Write access to the directory containing path was not allowed, or one of the directories in the path prefix of path did not allow search permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)

EBUSY
    path is currently in use by the system or some process that prevents its removal. On Linux, this means path is currently used as a mount point or is the root directory of the calling process.

EFAULT
    path points outside your accessible address space.

EINVAL
    path has . as last component.

ELOOP
    Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.

ENAMETOOLONG
    path was too long.

ENOENT
    A directory component in path does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.

ENOMEM
    Insufficient kernel memory was available.

ENOTDIR
    path, or a component used as a directory in path, is not, in fact, a directory.

ENOTEMPTY
    path contains entries other than . and ..; or, path has .. as its final component. POSIX.1 also allows EEXIST for this condition.

EPERM
    The directory containing path has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX) set and the process's effective user ID is neither the user ID 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 filesystem containing path does not support the removal of directories.

EROFS
    path refers to a directory on a read-only filesystem.

STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2024.

HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

BUGS
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected disappearance of directories which are still being used.

SEE ALSO
rm(1), rmdir(1), chdir(2), chmod(2), mkdir(2), rename(2), unlink(2), unlinkat(2)