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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.
93 Only unlink files and directories which are beneath of the topping
95 See the description of the
104 is passed the special value
108 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is
109 identical to a call to
113 respectively, depending on whether or not the
124 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
126 The named file is a directory.
127 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
128 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
129 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
131 The named file does not exist.
133 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
135 Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link
138 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
140 The named file is a directory.
142 The named file has its immutable, undeletable or append-only flag set, see the
144 manual page for more information.
146 The parent directory of the named file has its immutable or append-only flag
149 The directory containing the file is marked sticky,
150 and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed
151 are owned by the effective user ID.
153 An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry
154 or deallocating the inode.
156 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
161 points outside the process's allocated address space.
163 On file systems supporting copy-on-write or snapshots, there was not enough
164 free space to record metadata for the delete operation of the file.
167 In addition to the errors returned by the
176 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
180 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
188 argument names a directory that is not an empty directory,
189 or there are hard links to the directory other than dot or
190 a single entry in dot-dot.
198 does not name a directory.
202 argument is not valid.
206 argument is not an absolute path and
210 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
211 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
214 or contained a ".." component leading to a
215 directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by
217 and the process is in capability mode.
218 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
225 does not have its tail fully contained under the topping directory,
239 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
247 system call appeared in
252 system call traditionally allows the super-user to unlink directories which
253 can damage the file system integrity.
254 This implementation no longer permits it.