unlink(2)
NAME
unlink − remove directory entry
SYNTAX
unlink(path)
char *path;
DESCRIPTION
The unlink system call removes the entry for the file path from its directory. If this entry was the last link to the file, and no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are reclaimed. If, however, the file was open in any process, the actual resource reclamation is delayed until it is closed, even though the directory entry has disappeared.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of −1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.
ENVIRONMENT
Differs from the System V definition in that ETXTBUSY is not a possible error condition, but ELOOP is.
DIAGNOSTICS
The unlink system call succeeds unless:
[ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
[ENOENT] The named file does not exist.
[EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
[EACCES] Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed.
[EPERM] The named file is a directory and the effective user ID of the process is not the super-user.
[EBUSY] The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system.
[EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system.
[EFAULT] The path points outside the process’s allocated address space.
[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters.
[EPERM] The directory containing the file is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed are owned by the effective user ID.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode.
[ETIMEDOUT] A "connect" request or remote file operation failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time which is dependent on the communications protocol.
SEE ALSO
System Calls