Deleting Files (The GNU C Library)

### 14.7 Deleting Files ¶

You can delete a file with `unlink` or `remove`.

Deletion actually deletes a file name. If this is the file’s only name, then the file is deleted as well. If the file has other remaining names (see Hard Links), it remains accessible under those names.

Function: `int` unlink `(const char *filename)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  The `unlink` function deletes the file name filename. If this is a file’s sole name, the file itself is also deleted. (Actually, if any process has the file open when this happens, deletion is postponed until all processes have closed the file.)

  The function `unlink` is declared in the header file `unistd.h`.

  This function returns `0` on successful completion, and `-1` on error. In addition to the usual file name errors (see File Name Errors), the following `errno` error conditions are defined for this function:

  `EACCES`

    Write permission is denied for the directory from which the file is to be removed, or the directory has the sticky bit set and you do not own the file.

  `EBUSY`

    This error indicates that the file is being used by the system in such a way that it can’t be unlinked. For example, you might see this error if the file name specifies the root directory or a mount point for a file system.

  `ENOENT`

    The file name to be deleted doesn’t exist.

  `EPERM`

    On some systems `unlink` cannot be used to delete the name of a directory, or at least can only be used this way by a privileged user. To avoid such problems, use `rmdir` to delete directories. (On GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd systems `unlink` can never delete the name of a directory.)

  `EROFS`

    The directory containing the file name to be deleted is on a read-only file system and can’t be modified.

Function: `int` unlinkat `(int filedes, const char *filename, int flags)` ¶

  | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe corrupt | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  This function is a descriptor-relative version of the `unlink` function above. See Descriptor-Relative Access. The flags argument may either be `0` or contain the flag `AT_REMOVEDIR`:

  `AT_REMOVEDIR`

    This flag causes `unlinkat` to perform an `rmdir` operation on `filename` instead of performing the equivalent of `unlink`.

  Compared to `unlink`, some additional error conditions can occur due to descriptor-relative access. See Descriptor-Relative Access. In addition to this, the following other errors can also occur:

  `EISDIR`

    The effective final path derived from filename and filedes is a directory but `AT_REMOVEDIR` was not passed in `flags`.

Function: `int` rmdir `(const char *filename)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  The `rmdir` function deletes a directory. The directory must be empty before it can be removed; in other words, it can only contain entries for `.` and `..`.

  In most other respects, `rmdir` behaves like `unlink`. There are two additional `errno` error conditions defined for `rmdir`:

  `ENOTEMPTY`
  `EEXIST`

    The directory to be deleted is not empty.

  These two error codes are synonymous; some systems use one, and some use the other. GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd systems always use `ENOTEMPTY`.

  The prototype for this function is declared in the header file `unistd.h`.

Function: `int` remove `(const char *filename)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  This is the ISO C function to remove a file. It works like `unlink` for files and like `rmdir` for directories. `remove` is declared in `stdio.h`.