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REMOVE(3)                  Linux Programmer's Manual                 REMOVE(3)



 

NAME


       remove - delete a name and possibly the file it refers to

 

SYNOPSIS


       #include 

       int remove(const char *pathname);

 

DESCRIPTION






       remove()  deletes  a name from the file system.  It calls unlink(2) for
       files, and rmdir(2) for directories.

       If the removed name was the last link to a file and no  processes  have
       the  file  open  the file is deleted and the space it was using is made
       available for reuse.

       If the name was the last link to a file but any  processes  still  have
       the  file  open  the  file will remain in existence until the last file
       descriptor referring to it is closed.

       If the name referred to a symbolic link the link is removed.

       If the name referred to a socket, fifo or device the  name  for  it  is
       removed  but  processes  which have the object open may continue to use
       it.

 

RETURN VALUE


       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
       set appropriately.

 

ERRORS


       The errors that occur are those for unlink(2) and rmdir(2).

 

CONFORMING TO


       C89, C99, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

 

NOTES


       Under  libc4  and libc5, remove() was an alias for unlink(2) (and hence
       would not remove directories).

 

BUGS


       Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can  cause  the  unexpected
       disappearance of files which are still being used.

 

SEE ALSO


       rm(1),  unlink(1),  link(2),  mknod(2),  open(2),  rename(2), rmdir(2),
       unlink(2), mkfifo(3), symlink(7)

 

COLOPHON


       This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU                               1994-07-13                         REMOVE(3)