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28 .\" @(#)unlink.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
37 .Nd remove directory entry
43 .Fn unlink "const char *path"
45 .Fn unlinkat "int fd" "const char *path" "int flag"
50 removes the link named by
52 from its directory and decrements the link count of the
53 file which was referenced by the link.
54 If that decrement reduces the link count of the file
56 and no process has the file open, then
57 all resources associated with the file are reclaimed.
58 If one or more process have the file open when the last link is removed,
59 the link is removed, but the removal of the file is delayed until
60 all references to it have been closed.
64 may not be a directory.
68 system call is equivalent to
72 except in the case where
74 specifies a relative path.
75 In this case the directory entry to be removed is determined
76 relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor
78 instead of the current working directory.
82 are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following list,
85 .Bl -tag -width indent
87 Remove the directory entry specified by
91 as a directory, not a normal file.
96 is passed the special value
100 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is
101 identical to a call to
105 respectively, depending on whether or not the
116 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
117 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
118 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
119 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
121 The named file does not exist.
123 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
125 Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link
128 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
130 The named file is a directory.
132 The named file has its immutable, undeletable or append-only flag set, see the
134 manual page for more information.
136 The parent directory of the named file has its immutable or append-only flag
139 The directory containing the file is marked sticky,
140 and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed
141 are owned by the effective user ID.
143 An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry
144 or deallocating the inode.
146 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
151 points outside the process's allocated address space.
154 In addition to the errors returned by the
163 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
167 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
175 argument names a directory that is not an empty directory,
176 or there are hard links to the directory other than dot or
177 a single entry in dot-dot.
185 does not name a directory.
189 argument is not valid.
193 argument is not an absolute path and
197 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
208 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
216 system call appeared in
221 system call traditionally allows the super-user to unlink directories which
222 can damage the file system integrity.
223 This implementation no longer permits it.