RENAME(2) BSD System Calls Manual RENAME(2)NAMErename — change the name of a file
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
int
rename(const char *from, const char *to);
DESCRIPTIONRename() 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.
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 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.
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.
ERRORSRename() 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.
[EACCES] 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.
[EPERM] 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.
[ENOTDIR] 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.
SEE ALSOopen(2)symlink(7)STANDARDS
The rename() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (“POSIX.1”).
4.2 Berkeley Distribution June 4, 1993 4.2 Berkeley Distribution
