FreeBSD Man Pages

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

     The rename() system call 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.

     The rename() system call guarantees that if to already exists, 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.

RETURN VALUES

     The rename() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS

     The rename() system call will fail and neither of the argument files will
     be affected if:

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	A component of either pathname exceeded 255 charac-
			ters, or the entire length of either path name
			exceeded 1023 characters.

     [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 file pointed at by the to argument 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-

			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]		The from argument is a parent directory of to, or an
			attempt is made to rename `.' or `..'.

     [ENOTEMPTY]	The to argument is a directory and is not empty.

SEE ALSO

     open(2), symlink(7)

STANDARDS

     The rename() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996
     (``POSIX.1'').

FreeBSD 5.4			 June 4, 1993			   FreeBSD 5.4

SPONSORED LINKS