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

NAME
       unlink - delete a name and possibly the file it refers to

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int unlink(const char *pathname);

DESCRIPTION
       unlink  deletes  a  name from the filesystem. If that name
       was the last link to a file and no processes have the file
       open  the  file  is  deleted and the space it was using is
       made available for reuse.

       If the name was the last link to a file but any  processes
       still have the file open the file will remain in existence
       until the last file descriptor referring to it is  closed.

       If  the  name  referred  to  a  symbolic  link the link is
       removed.

       If the name referred to a socket, fifo or device the  name
       for it is removed but processes which have the object open
       may continue to use it.

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

ERRORS
       EFAULT  pathname  points  outside  your accessible address
               space.

       EACCES  Write access to the directory containing  pathname
               is not allowed for the process's effective uid, or
               one of the directories in pathname did  not  allow
               search (execute) permission.

       EPERM   The  directory containing pathname has the sticky-
               bit (S_ISVTX) set and the process's effective  uid
               is  neither  the uid of the file to be deleted nor
               that of the directory containing it,  or  pathname
               is a directory.

       ENAMETOOLONG
               pathname was too long.

       ENOENT  A  directory  component in pathname does not exist
               or is a dangling symbolic link.

       ENOTDIR A component used as a  directory  in  pathname  is
               not, in fact, a directory.

       EISDIR  pathname refers to a directory.

       ENOMEM  Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       EROFS   pathname  refers to a file on a read-only filesys-
               tem.

       ELOOP   Too many symbolic links were encountered in trans-
               lating pathname.

       EIO     An I/O error occurred.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4,  SVID,  POSIX, X/OPEN, 4.3BSD.  SVr4 documents addi-
       tional error conditions EBUSY, EINTR, EMULTIHOP, ETXTBUSY,
       ENOLINK.

BUGS
       Infelicities  in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the
       unexpected disappearance of files which  are  still  being
       used.

SEE ALSO
       link(2),    rename(2),    open(2),   rmdir(2),   mknod(2),
       mkfifo(3), remove(3), rm(1)

Linux 2.0.30              21 August 1997                        1