VOP_REMOVE(9)

💖 VOP_REMOVE(9) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the Kernel Developer's Manual ✨ this one's about VOP_REMOVE and VOP_RMDIR — the vnode operations that yeet files and directories out of existence 🗑️💅

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

VOP_REMOVE, VOP_RMDIR — remove a file or directory

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/vnode.h>

int
VOP_REMOVE(struct vnode *dvp, struct vnode *vp,
    struct componentname *cnp);

int
VOP_RMDIR(struct vnode *dvp, struct vnode *vp,
    struct componentname *cnp);

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So these two entry points are the moment of truth: they remove files and directories, respectively. VOP_REMOVE handles the files, VOP_RMDIR handles the dirs, and honestly? iconic behaviour 💖

The arguments are:

• dvp — the vnode of the directory 👑 (yes, the directory that's holding the thing you're deleting, she's the main character here)
• vp — the vnode of the file to be removed 🌸
• cnp — pathname information about the file, iykyk 🎀

---

🔒 LOCKS 🔒

Both dvp and vp should be locked on entry and remain locked on return. no cap. don't be out here unlocking mid-operation, that's not the vibe 🙈

---

🌈 RETURN VALUES 🌈

Zero is returned on success 🎉 otherwise an error code is returned 😭

---

💀 ERRORS 💀

• [EPERM] — The file is immutable. she cannot be moved, she cannot be removed, she said no periodt ✋
• [ENOTEMPTY] — An attempt was made to remove a directory which is not empty. like bestie you gotta empty her out first, you can't just rmdir a whole folder full of stuff 😭

---

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

vnode(9), VOP_LOOKUP(9)

---

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

This manual page was written by Doug Rabson. thank you king 💜

---

and that's the whole page bestie, slay ✨ this lil guide came from the Debian release, dated July 24, 1996 🎀 — yep, a vintage queen, and she's still out here handling VOP_REMOVE(9) business like it's nothing 💅🌸