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 to indicate the
       error.

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 5.13 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/.