NAME
unlink - remove directory entry
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int unlink(const char *path)
DESCRIPTION
Unlink removes the entry for the file path from its direc-
tory. If this entry was the last link to the file, and no
process has the file open, then all resources associated
with the file are reclaimed. If, however, the file was open
in any process, the actual resource reclamation is delayed
until it is closed, even though the directory entry has
disappeared.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Oth-
erwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indi-
cate the error.
ERRORS
The unlink succeeds unless:
[ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a
directory.
[ENAMETOOLONG] The path name exceeds PATH_MAX 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. (Minix-vmd)
[EPERM] The named file is a directory.
[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. (Minix-vmd)
[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).