NAME

unlink, remove − remove directory entry

SYNOPSIS

int unlink (path)
char ∗path;

int remove (path)
char ∗path;

DESCRIPTION

unlink removes the directory entry named by the path name pointed to by path.

Remove is an alternate name for unlink. 

The named file is unlinked unless one or more of the following are true:

­[EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix, or write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed. 

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

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

­[ENAMETOOLONG] The path argument exceeds {PATH_MAX} in length, or a pathname component is longer than {NAME_MAX}  (see pathconf(2)). 

­[ENOENT] The named file does not exist, or the path argument points to an empty string. 

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

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

­[EROFS] The directory entry to be unlinked is part of a read-only file system. 

­[ETXTBSY] The entry to be unlinked is the last link to a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being executed. 

When all links to a file have been removed and no process has the file open, the space occupied by the file is freed and the file ceases to exist.  If one or more processes have the file open when the last link is removed, the removal is postponed until all references to the file have been closed. 

RETURN VALUE

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

SEE ALSO

close(2), link(2), open(2), rmdir(2). 
rm(1) in the CX/UX User’s Reference Manual. 

CX/UX Programmer’s Reference Manual