RMDIR(2)		   Linux Programmers Manual		     RMDIR(2)



NAME
       rmdir - delete a directory

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       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 path
	      name did not allow search permission.   (See  also  path_resolu
	      tion(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 dan
	      gling 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.1-2001 also allows EEXIST for
	      this condition.

       EPERM  The  directory  containing pathname has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX)
	      set and the processs 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 file system containing pathname does not support the removal
	      of directories.

       EROFS  pathname refers to a directory on a read-only file system.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

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 3.05 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux				  2008-05-08			      RMDIR(2)