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RENAME(2)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		     RENAME(2)

NAME
       rename, renameat - change the name or location of a file

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdio.h>

       int rename(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);

       #include <fcntl.h>	    /* Definition of AT_* constants */
       #include <stdio.h>

       int renameat(int olddirfd, const char *oldpath,
		    int newdirfd, const char *newpath);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       renameat():
	   Since glibc 2.10:
	       _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 700 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
	   Before glibc 2.10:
	       _ATFILE_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION
       rename()	 renames  a  file,  moving it between directories if required.
       Any other hard links to the file (as created using link(2))  are	 unaf‐
       fected.	Open file descriptors for oldpath are also unaffected.

       If newpath already exists, it will be atomically replaced (subject to a
       few conditions; see ERRORS below), so that there is no point  at	 which
       another process attempting to access newpath will find it missing.

       If  oldpath  and	 newpath are existing hard links referring to the same
       file, then rename() does nothing, and returns a success status.

       If newpath exists but the operation fails  for  some  reason,  rename()
       guarantees to leave an instance of newpath in place.

       oldpath can specify a directory.	 In this case, newpath must either not
       exist, or it must specify an empty directory.

       However, when overwriting there will probably be a window in which both
       oldpath and newpath refer to the file being renamed.

       If  oldpath  refers to a symbolic link, the link is renamed; if newpath
       refers to a symbolic link, the link will be overwritten.

   renameat ()
       The renameat()  system  call  operates  in  exactly  the	 same  way  as
       rename(), except for the differences described here.

       If  the	pathname  given in oldpath is relative, then it is interpreted
       relative to the directory referred to by the file  descriptor  olddirfd
       (rather	than  relative to the current working directory of the calling
       process, as is done by rename() for a relative pathname).

       If oldpath is relative and olddirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then
       oldpath is interpreted relative to the current working directory of the
       calling process (like rename()).

       If oldpath is absolute, then olddirfd is ignored.

       The interpretation of newpath is as for oldpath, except that a relative
       pathname	 is  interpreted  relative to the directory referred to by the
       file descriptor newdirfd.

       See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for renameat().

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
       set appropriately.

ERRORS
       EACCES Write  permission is denied for the directory containing oldpath
	      or newpath, or, search permission	 is  denied  for  one  of  the
	      directories in the path prefix of oldpath or newpath, or oldpath
	      is a directory and does not allow write  permission  (needed  to
	      update the ..  entry).  (See also path_resolution(7).)

       EBUSY  The  rename fails because oldpath or newpath is a directory that
	      is in use by some process (perhaps as current working directory,
	      or  as root directory, or because it was open for reading) or is
	      in use by the system (for example as  mount  point),  while  the
	      system considers this an error.  (Note that there is no require‐
	      ment to return EBUSY in such cases—there is nothing  wrong  with
	      doing the rename anyway—but it is allowed to return EBUSY if the
	      system cannot otherwise handle such situations.)

       EDQUOT The user's quota of disk	blocks	on  the	 filesystem  has  been
	      exhausted.

       EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL The  new	pathname  contained a path prefix of the old, or, more
	      generally, an attempt was made to make a directory  a  subdirec‐
	      tory of itself.

       EISDIR newpath  is  an  existing directory, but oldpath is not a direc‐
	      tory.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving oldpath or
	      newpath.

       EMLINK oldpath already has the maximum number of links to it, or it was
	      a directory and the directory containing newpath has the maximum
	      number of links.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      oldpath or newpath was too long.

       ENOENT The link named by oldpath does not exist; or, a directory compo‐
	      nent in newpath does not exist; or, oldpath  or  newpath	is  an
	      empty string.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
	      entry.

       ENOTDIR
	      A component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in
	      fact,  a	directory.   Or,  oldpath  is a directory, and newpath
	      exists but is not a directory.

       ENOTEMPTY or EEXIST
	      newpath is a nonempty directory, that is, contains entries other
	      than "." and "..".

       EPERM or EACCES
	      The  directory  containing  oldpath has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX)
	      set and the process's effective user ID is neither the  user  ID
	      of  the  file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing
	      it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have  the
	      CAP_FOWNER  capability);	or newpath is an existing file and the
	      directory containing it has the sticky bit set and the process's
	      effective	 user  ID  is  neither	the  user ID of the file to be
	      replaced nor that	 of  the  directory  containing	 it,  and  the
	      process  is  not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER
	      capability); or the filesystem containing pathname does not sup‐
	      port renaming of the type requested.

       EROFS  The file is on a read-only filesystem.

       EXDEV  oldpath  and  newpath  are  not  on the same mounted filesystem.
	      (Linux permits a filesystem to be mounted	 at  multiple  points,
	      but  rename()  does not work across different mount points, even
	      if the same filesystem is mounted on both.)

       The following additional errors can occur for renameat():

       EBADF  olddirfd or newdirfd is not a valid file descriptor.

       ENOTDIR
	      oldpath is relative and olddirfd is a file descriptor  referring
	      to  a  file  other  than a directory; or similar for newpath and
	      newdirfd

VERSIONS
       renameat() was added to Linux in kernel	2.6.16;	 library  support  was
       added to glibc in version 2.4.

CONFORMING TO
       rename(): 4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

       renameat(): POSIX.1-2008.

BUGS
       On  NFS	filesystems,  you can not assume that if the operation failed,
       the file was not renamed.  If the server does the rename operation  and
       then  crashes,  the  retransmitted RPC which will be processed when the
       server is up again causes a failure.  The application  is  expected  to
       deal with this.	See link(2) for a similar problem.

SEE ALSO
       mv(1),  chmod(2),  link(2),  symlink(2), unlink(2), path_resolution(7),
       symlink(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.65 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux				  2014-02-21			     RENAME(2)
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