NAME
unlinkat - remove a directory entry relative to a directory file descriptor SYNOPSIS
#include
/* Definition of AT* constants */ #include
int unlinkat(int dirfd, const char *pathname, int flags); Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see featuretestmacros(7)): unlinkat(): Since glibc 2.10: XOPENSOURCE >= 700 || POSIXCSOURCE >= 200809L Before glibc 2.10: ATFILESOURCE DESCRIPTION The unlinkat() system call operates in exactly the same way as either unlink(2) or rmdir(2) (depending on whether or not flags includes the ATREMOVEDIR flag) except for the differences described in this manual page. 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(2) and rmdir(2) for a relative pathname). If the pathname given in pathname is relative and dirfd is the special value ATFDCWD, then pathname is interpreted relative to the current working directory of the calling process (like unlink(2) 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(). Cur‐ rently only one such flag is defined: ATREMOVEDIR By default, unlinkat() performs the equivalent of unlink(2) on pathname. If the ATREMOVEDIR flag is specified, then performs the equivalent of rmdir(2) on pathname. RETURN VALUE On success, unlinkat() returns 0. On error, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS The same errors that occur for unlink(2) 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. ENOTDIR pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory. VERSIONS unlinkat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was added to glibc in version 2.4. CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2008. A similar system call exists on Solaris. NOTES See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for unlinkat(). SEE ALSO openat(2), rmdir(2), unlink(2), pathresolution(7) COLOPHON
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Linux 2012-05-04 UNLINKAT(2)