unlinkat

NAME

unlinkat - remove a directory entry relative to a directory file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

#define _ATFILE_SOURCE
#include <fcntl.h>
 I int unlinkat(int  dirfd , const char * pathname , int  flags );

DESCRIPTION

The R unlinkat () system call operates in exactly the same way as either unlink(2) or rmdir(2) (depending on whether or not flags includes the AT_REMOVEDIR 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 R 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 R AT_FDCWD , 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 R 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 R unlinkat (). Currently only one such flags is defined:
AT_REMOVEDIR
By default, R unlinkat () performs the equivalent of unlink(2) on R pathname . If the AT_REMOVEDIR flag is specified, then performs the equivalent of rmdir(2) on R pathname .

RETURN VALUE

On success, R 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 R unlinkat (). The following additional errors can occur for R unlinkat ():
EBADF
dirfd is not a valid file descriptor.
EINVAL
An invalid flag value was specified in R flags .
ENOTDIR
pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory.

VERSIONS

R unlinkat () was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16.

CONFORMING TO

This system call is non-standard but is proposed for inclusion in a future revision of POSIX.1. A similar system call exists on Solaris.

NOTES

See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for R unlinkat ().

SEE ALSO