RMDIR(2)

💖 RMDIR(2) 💖

okay bestie, so this one is a page from the System Calls Manual (yes, the 2 section, we love a syscall moment) and it's all about the rmdir system call. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

rmdir — remove a directory file. that's it. that's the whole vibe. bye-bye empty folder 💅

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📚 LIBRARY 📚

Standard C Library (libc, -lc). so like, link against -lc and you're golden ✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <unistd.h>

int
rmdir(const char *path);

like, that's the whole signature. one path, one int coming back at you 💜

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the rmdir() system call removes a directory file whose name is given by path.

and here's the tea ☕ — the directory must not have any entries other than ‘.’ and ‘..’. it has to be empty empty. not "empty-ish". not "just one little file". literally just . and .. and nothing else. if there's anything else in there, bestie, it's not happening 😭

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🌈 RETURN VALUES 🌈

• rmdir() returns the value 0 if it succeeded. slay ✨
• otherwise the value -1 comes back and the global variable errno is set to tell you exactly what went wrong. iconic error-reporting behaviour, honestly 👑

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👑 ERRORS 👑

so the named file is removed unless one of these lil guys happens. read 'em and weep:

• [ENOTDIR] — a component of the path is not a directory. rude of it.
• [ENAMETOOLONG] — a component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. that's a LOT of characters bestie, calm down 😭
• [ENOENT] — the named directory does not exist. it's giving "who?" 💀
• [ELOOP] — too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. the symlinks got into a situationship and never came out 🌀
• [ENOTEMPTY] — the named directory contains files other than ‘.’ and ‘..’ in it. we told you it had to be empty 😤
• [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 directory to be removed has its immutable, undeletable or append-only flag set, see the chflags(2) manual page for more information. yeah it's flagged, you cannot simply delete it 🚩
• [EPERM] — the parent directory of the directory to be removed has its immutable or append-only flag set. the parent said "not on my watch" 🙈
• [EPERM] — the directory containing the directory to be removed is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the directory to be removed are owned by the effective user ID. sticky-bit drama, we love to see it 🍓
• [EINVAL] — the last component of the path is ‘.’ or ‘..’. nope. absolutely not. you cannot rmdir the dot-dots, that's the rules 🚫
• [EBUSY] — the directory to be removed is the mount point for a mounted file system. busy busy busy, it's got a whole filesystem hanging off it 💅
• [EIO] — an I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry or deallocating the inode. hardware said nope 😭
• [EINTEGRITY] — corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system. 💀💀💀
• [EROFS] — the directory entry to be removed resides on a read-only file system. it's read-only babes, you literally cannot ✋
• [EFAULT] — the path argument points outside the process's allocated address space. the pointer went somewhere it should not have gone, main character energy gone wrong 🫠

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

mkdir(2), unlink(2) — the make-the-folder one and the delete-the-file one. the whole bestie trio fr fr 🫶

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the rmdir() system call appeared in 4.2BSD. vintage! retro! still here! 👑

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ngl bestie, if you remember ONE thing: the directory must be empty except for ‘.’ and ‘..’. that's the whole personality of this syscall. no cap. 💖

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and that's the page!! this one came from Debian, dated March 30, 2020, and it lives at RMDIR(2). mwah, go delete an empty folder responsibly 🎀✨💜