.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)unlink.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 .\" .Dd June 4, 1993 .Dt UNLINK 2 .Os BSD 4 .Sh NAME .Nm unlink .Nd remove directory entry .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include .Ft int .Fn unlink "const char *path" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn unlink function removes the link named by .Fa path from its directory and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by the link. If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are reclaimed. If one or more process have the file open when the last link is removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is delayed until all references to it have been closed. .Fa path may not be a directory. .Sh RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and .Va errno is set to indicate the error. .Sh ERRORS The .Fn unlink succeeds unless: .Bl -tag -width ENAMETOOLONGAA .It Bq Er ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. .It Bq Er EINVAL The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. .It Bq Er ENOENT The named file does not exist. .It Bq Er EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. .It Bq Er EACCES Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed. .It Bq Er ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. .It Bq Er EPERM The named file is a directory. .It Bq Er 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. .It Bq Er EBUSY The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode. .It Bq Er EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system. .It Bq Er EFAULT .Fa Path points outside the process's allocated address space. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr close 2 , .Xr link 2 , .Xr rmdir 2 .Xr symlink 7 .Sh HISTORY An .Nm function call appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. .Pp The .Nm system call traditionally allows the super-user to unlink directories which can damage the filesystem integrity. This implementation no longer permits it.