rename man page on NetBSD

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   9087 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
NetBSD logo
[printable version]

RENAME(2)		    BSD System Calls Manual		     RENAME(2)

NAME
     rename — change the name of a file

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <stdio.h>

     int
     rename(const char *from, const char *to);

DESCRIPTION
     rename() 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 an instance of to will always exist, even if the
     system should crash in the middle of the operation.

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

     If both from and to are pathnames of the same existing file in the file
     system's name space, rename() returns successfully and performs no other
     action.

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

ERRORS
     rename() will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} charac‐
			ters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} char‐
			acters.

     [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, or 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.	Or 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,
			or 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.

     [EBUSY]		from or to is the mount point for a mounted file sys‐
			tem.

SEE ALSO
     open(2), symlink(7)

STANDARDS
     The rename() function deviates from the semantics defined in ISO/IEC
     9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”), which specifies that if both from and to link to
     the same existing file, rename() shall return successfully and performs
     no further action, whereas this implementation will remove the file spec‐
     ified by from unless both from and to are pathnames of the same file in
     the file system's name space.

     To retain conformance, a compatibility interface is provided by the POSIX
     Compatibility Library (libposix, -lposix) which is also be brought into
     scope if any of the _POSIX_SOURCE, _POSIX_C_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE pre‐
     processor symbols are defined at compile-time: the rename() function con‐
     forms to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”) and X/Open Portability Guide
     Issue 4, Version 2 (“XPG4.2”).

BUGS
     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 sep‐
     arate 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.

BSD			       December 27, 2005			   BSD
[top]
                             _         _         _ 
                            | |       | |       | |     
                            | |       | |       | |     
                         __ | | __ __ | | __ __ | | __  
                         \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ /  
                          \ \ / /   \ \ / /   \ \ / /   
                           \   /     \   /     \   /    
                            \_/       \_/       \_/ 
More information is available in HTML format for server NetBSD

List of man pages available for NetBSD

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