mq_unlink(3)

💅 mq_unlink(3) — bestie edition

okay so real quick, this is mq_unlink(3), a page from the Library Functions Manual, and it's all about yeeting a message queue name into the void 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

mq_unlink — remove a message queue

📚 LIBRARY 📚

Real-time library (that's librt, and you link it with -lrt) 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <mqueue.h>

int mq_unlink(const char *name);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so mq_unlink() removes the specified message queue name. and bestie, it's immediate — the message queue name is gone the second this call goes through, no hesitation, no waiting around, main character energy fr fr 💅

but here's the tea: the queue itself isn't destroyed right away. it gets destroyed once any other processes that have the queue open close their descriptors referring to the queue. so like... it's a "you can leave but the party keeps going until everyone leaves" kinda situation ✨

💖 RETURN VALUE 💖

• on success, mq_unlink() returns 0 — slay, we love a clean win 👑
• on error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error 😭

💀 ERRORS 💀

• EACCES — the caller does not have permission to unlink this message queue. like, the door is locked and you are not on the list bestie 🙈
• ENAMETOOLONG — name was too long. it's giving "essay when they asked for a text" 💀
• ENOENT — there is no message queue with the given name. nothing there. ghosted. literally nothing to unlink 🍓

🧚 ATTRIBUTES 🧚

for an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7), okay?

• Interface: mq_unlink()
• Attribute: Thread safety
• Value: MT-Safe

so yeah, it's thread safe, no cap — multiple threads can be in there at the same time and nobody's fighting 🫶

🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

POSIX.1-2008. periodt. 💅

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

POSIX.1-2001. so it's been iconic since way back, not me being nostalgic 🎀

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

mq_close(3), mq_getattr(3), mq_notify(3), mq_open(3), mq_receive(3), mq_send(3), mq_overview(7)

go read those too, iykyk 📖✨

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one's from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08 — the mq_unlink(3) page, signed, sealed, delivered 💜