NAME

       rmdir - delete a directory

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int rmdir(const char *pathname);

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 appropriately.

ERRORS

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

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

       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL pathname has .  as last component.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              pathname was too long.

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

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

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

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

       EPERM  The  directory  containing  pathname  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 pathname does not support the removal of directories.

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

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 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)

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the
       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of  this  page,  can  be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.