RENAME

Section: System Calls (2)
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BSD mandoc
BSD 4.2

NAME

rename - change the name of a file

SYNOPSIS

Fd #include <stdio.h> Ft int Fn rename const char *from const char *to

DESCRIPTION

Fn Rename causes the link named Fa from to be renamed as Fa to . If Fa to exists, it is first removed. Both Fa from and Fa to must be of the same type (that is, both directories or both non-directories), and must reside on the same file system.

Fn Rename guarantees that an instance of Fa to will always exist, even if the system should crash in the middle of the operation.

If the final component of Fa from is a symbolic link, the symbolic link is renamed, not the file or directory to which it points.

CAVEAT

The system can deadlock if a loop in the file system graph is present. This loop takes the form of an entry in directory `a ' , say `a/foo ' , being a hard link to directory `b ' , and an entry in directory `b ' , say `b/bar ' , being a hard link to directory `a ' When such a loop exists and two separate processes attempt to perform `rename' a/foo b/bar and `rename' b/bar a/foo , respectively, the system may deadlock attempting to lock both directories for modification. Hard links to directories should be replaced by symbolic links by the system administrator.

RETURN VALUES

A 0 value is returned if the operation succeeds, otherwise Fn rename returns -1 and the global variable errno indicates the reason for the failure.

ERRORS

Fn Rename will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:

Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG: A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.
Bq Er ENOENT: A component of the Fa from path does not exist, or a path prefix of Fa to does not exist.
Bq Er EACCES: A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
Bq Er EACCES: The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode that denies write permission.
Bq Er EPERM: The directory containing Fa from is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor Fa from are owned by the effective user ID.
Bq Er EPERM: The Fa to file exists, the directory containing Fa to is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor Fa to are owned by the effective user ID.
Bq Er ELOOP: Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating either pathname.
Bq Er ENOTDIR: A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
Bq Er ENOTDIR: Fa from is a directory, but Fa to is not a directory.
Bq Er EISDIR: Fa to is a directory, but Fa from is not a directory.
Bq Er EXDEV: The link named by Fa to and the file named by Fa from are on different logical devices (file systems). Note that this error code will not be returned if the implementation permits cross-device links.
Bq Er 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 directory.
Bq Er 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.
Bq Er EIO: An I/O error occurred while making or updating a directory entry.
Bq Er EROFS: The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file system.
Bq Er EFAULT: Path points outside the process's allocated address space.
Bq Er EINVAL: Fa From is a parent directory of Fa to , or an attempt is made to rename `.' or `..'
Bq Er ENOTEMPTY: Fa To is a directory and is not empty.

STANDARDS

The Fn rename function conforms to St -p1003.1-88 .

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 16:28:59 GMT, April 18, 2022