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NAME
rename — change the name of a file
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
int
rename(const char *from, const char *to);
int
renameat(int fromfd, const char *from, int tofd, const char *to);
DESCRIPTION
The rename() system call causes the link named from to be renamed as to. If to exists, it
is first removed. Both from and to must be of the same type (that is, both directories or
both non-directories), and must reside on the same file system.
The rename() system call guarantees that if to already exists, an instance of to will always
exist, even if the system should crash in the middle of the operation.
If the final component of from is a symbolic link, the symbolic link is renamed, not the
file or directory to which it points.
If from and to resolve to the same directory entry, or to different directory entries for
the same existing file, rename() returns success without taking any further action.
The renameat() system call is equivalent to rename() except in the case where either from or
to specifies a relative path. If from is a relative path, the file to be renamed is located
relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor fromfd instead of the current
working directory. If the to is a relative path, the same happens only relative to the
directory associated with tofd. If the renameat() is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in
the fromfd or tofd parameter, the current working directory is used in the determination of
the file for the respective path parameter.
RETURN VALUES
The rename() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned
and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The rename() system call will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:
[ENAMETOOLONG] A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters, or the entire
length of either path name exceeded 1023 characters.
[ENOENT] A component of the from path does not exist, or a path prefix of to does
not exist.
[EACCES] A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
[EACCES] The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode that
denies write permission.
[EACCES] The directory pointed at by the from argument denies write permission,
and the operation would move it to another parent directory.
[EPERM] The file pointed at by the from argument has its immutable, undeletable
or append-only flag set, see the chflags(2) manual page for more
information.
[EPERM] The parent directory of the file pointed at by the from argument has its
immutable or append-only flag set.
[EPERM] The parent directory of the file pointed at by the to argument has its
immutable flag set.
[EPERM] The directory containing from is marked sticky, and neither the
containing directory nor from are owned by the effective user ID.
[EPERM] The file pointed at by the to argument exists, the directory containing
to is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor to are
owned by the effective user ID.
[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating either pathname.
[ENOTDIR] A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
[ENOTDIR] The from argument is a directory, but to is not a directory.
[EISDIR] The to argument is a directory, but from is not a directory.
[EXDEV] The link named by to and the file named by from are on different logical
devices (file systems). Note that this error code will not be returned
if the implementation permits cross-device links.
[ENOSPC] The directory in which the entry for the new name is being placed cannot
be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing
the directory.
[EDQUOT] The directory in which the entry for the new name is being placed cannot
be extended because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system
containing the directory has been exhausted.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while making or updating a directory entry.
[EINTEGRITY] Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
[EROFS] The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file
system.
[EFAULT] Path points outside the process's allocated address space.
[EINVAL] The from argument is a parent directory of to, or an attempt is made to
rename ‘.’ or ‘..’.
[ENOTEMPTY] The to argument is a directory and is not empty.
[ECAPMODE] rename() was called and the process is in capability mode.
In addition to the errors returned by the rename(), the renameat() may fail if:
[EBADF] The from argument does not specify an absolute path and the fromfd
argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for
searching, or the to argument does not specify an absolute path and the
tofd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for
searching.
[ENOTDIR] The from argument is not an absolute path and fromfd is neither AT_FDCWD
nor a file descriptor associated with a directory, or the to argument is
not an absolute path and tofd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor
associated with a directory.
[ECAPMODE] AT_FDCWD is specified and the process is in capability mode.
[ENOTCAPABLE] path is an absolute path or contained a ".." component leading to a
directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by fromfd or tofd.
[ENOTCAPABLE] The fromfd file descriptor lacks the CAP_RENAMEAT_SOURCE right, or the
tofd file descriptor lacks the CAP_RENAMEAT_TARGET right.
SEE ALSO
chflags(2), open(2), symlink(7)
STANDARDS
The rename() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”). The
renameat() system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
HISTORY
The renameat() system call appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.