RENAME(2) BSD System Calls Manual RENAME(2)NAME
rename, renameat — change the name of a file
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
int
rename(const char *from, const char *to);
int
renameat(int fromfd, const char *from, int tofd, const char *to);
DESCRIPTIONRename() causes the link named from to be renamed as to. If to exists,
it is first removed. Both from and to must be of the same type (that is,
both directories or both non-directories), and must reside on the same
file system.
Rename() guarantees that if to already exists, an instance of to will
always exist, even if the system should crash in the middle of the opera‐
tion.
If the final component of from is a symbolic link, the symbolic link is
renamed, not the file or directory to which it points.
The renameat() system call is equivalent to rename() except in the case
where either from or to specifies a relative path. If from is a relative
path, the file to be renamed is located relative to the directory associ‐
ated with the file descriptor fromfd instead of the current working
directory. If the to is a relative path, the same happens only relative
to the directory associated with tofd. If the renameat() is passed the
special value AT_FDCWD in the fromfd or tofd parameter, the current work‐
ing directory is used in the determination of the file for the respective
path parameter.
RETURN VALUES
The rename() and renameat() functions return the value 0 if successful;
otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set
to indicate the error.
ERRORSRename() will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:
[ENAMETOOLONG] A component of either pathname exceeded 255 charac‐
ters, or the entire length of either path name
exceeded 1023 characters.
[ENOENT] A component of the from path does not exist, or a path
prefix of to does not exist.
[EACCES] A component of either path prefix denies search per‐
mission.
[EACCES] The requested link requires writing in a directory
with a mode that denies write permission.
[EPERM] The directory containing from is marked sticky, and
neither the containing directory nor from are owned by
the effective user ID.
[EPERM] The to file exists, the directory containing to is
marked sticky, and neither the containing directory
nor to are owned by the effective user ID.
[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat‐
ing either pathname.
[ENOTDIR] A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
[ENOTDIR] from is a directory, but to is not a directory.
[EISDIR] to is a directory, but from is not a directory.
[EXDEV] The link named by to and the file named by from are on
different logical devices (file systems). Note that
this error code will not be returned if the implemen‐
tation permits cross-device links.
[ENOSPC] The directory in which the entry for the new name is
being placed cannot be extended because there is no
space left on the file system containing the direc‐
tory.
[EDQUOT] The directory in which the entry for the new name is
being placed cannot be extended because the user's
quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the
directory has been exhausted.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while making or updating a
directory entry.
[EROFS] The requested link requires writing in a directory on
a read-only file system.
[EFAULT] Path points outside the process's allocated address
space.
[EINVAL] From is a parent directory of to, or an attempt is
made to rename ‘.’ or ‘..’.
[ENOTEMPTY] To is a directory and is not empty.
In addition to the errors returned by the rename(), the renameat() may
fail if:
[EBADF] The from argument does not specify an absolute path
and the fromfd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a
valid file descriptor open for searching, or the to
argument does not specify an absolute path and the
tofd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file
descriptor open for searching.
[ENOTDIR] The from argument is not an absolute path and fromfd
is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated
with a directory, or the to argument is not an abso‐
lute path and tofd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file
descriptor associated with a directory.
SEE ALSOopen(2), symlink(7)STANDARDS
The rename() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996
(“POSIX.1”). The renameat() system call follows The Open Group Extended
API Set 2 specification.
HISTORY
The renameat() system call appeared in DragonFly 2.7.
BSD July 31, 2010 BSD
