unlink man page on 4.4BSD

Printed from http://www.polarhome.com/service/man/?qf=unlink&af=0&tf=2&of=4.4BSD

UNLINK(2)		    BSD System Calls Manual		     UNLINK(2)

NAME
     unlink — remove directory entry

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     unlink(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION
     The unlink() function removes the link named by path from its directory
     and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by the
     link.  If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and
     no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file
     are reclaimed.  If one or more process have the file open when the last
     link is removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is
     delayed until all references to it have been closed.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value
     of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
     The unlink() succeeds unless:

     [ENOTDIR]	     A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

     [EINVAL]	     The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit
		     set.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]  A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an
		     entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.

     [ENOENT]	     The named file does not exist.

     [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.

     [ELOOP]	     Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating
		     the pathname.

     [EPERM]	     The named file is a directory and the effective user ID
		     of the process is not the super-user.

     [EPERM]	     The directory containing the file is marked sticky, and
		     neither the containing directory nor the file to be
		     removed are owned by the effective user ID.

     [EBUSY]	     The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted
		     file system.

     [EIO]	     An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory entry
		     or deallocating the inode.

     [EROFS]	     The named file resides on a read-only file system.

     [EFAULT]	     Path points outside the process's allocated address
		     space.

SEE ALSO
     close(2), link(2), rmdir(2) symlink(7)

HISTORY
     An unlink function call appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

4th Berkeley Distribution	 June 4, 1993	     4th Berkeley Distribution
[top]

List of man pages available for 4.4BSD

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net