System Calls rename(2)
NAME
rename, renameat - change the name of a file
SYNOPSIS
#include
int rename(const char *old, const char *new);
#include
int renameat(int fromfd, const char *old, int tofd,
const char *new);
XPG3
#include
int rename(const char *old, const char *new);
DESCRIPTION
The rename() function changes the name of a file. The old
argument points to the pathname of the file to be renamed.
The new argument points to the new path name of the file.
The renameat() function renames an entry in a directory,
possibly moving the entry into a different directory. See
fsattr(5). If the old argument is an absolute path, the
fromfd is ignored. Otherwise it is resolved relative to the
fromfd argument rather than the current working directory.
Similarly, if the new argument is not absolute, it is
resolved relative to the tofd argument. If either fromfd or
tofd have the value ATFDCWD, defined in , and
their respective paths are relative, the path is resolved
relative to the current working directory.
Current implementation restrictions will cause the
renameat() function to return an error if an attempt is made
to rename an extended attribute file to a regular (non-
attribute) file, or to rename a regular file to an extended
attribute file.
If old and new both refer to the same existing file, the
rename() and renameat() functions return successfully and
performs no other action.
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System Calls rename(2)
If old points to the pathname of a file that is not a direc-
tory, new must not point to the pathname of a directory. If
the link named by new exists, it will be removed and old
will be renamed to new. In this case, a link named new must
remain visible to other processes throughout the renaming
operation and will refer to either the file referred to by
new or the file referred to as old before the operation
began.
If old points to the pathname of a directory, new must not
point to the pathname of a file that is not a directory. If
the directory named by new exists, it will be removed and
old will be renamed to new. In this case, a link named new
will exist throughout the renaming operation and will refer
to either the file referred to by new or the file referred
to as old before the operation began. Thus, if new names an
existing directory, it must be an empty directory.
The new pathname must not contain a path prefix that names
old. Write access permission is required for both the direc-
tory containing old and the directory containing new. If old
points to the pathname of a directory, write access permis-
sion is required for the directory named by old, and, if it
exists, the directory named by new.
If the directory containing old has the sticky bit set, at
least one of the following conditions listed below must be
true:
o the user must own old
o the user must own the directory containing old
o old must be writable by the user
o the user must be a privileged user
If new exists, and the directory containing new is writable
and has the sticky bit set, at least one of the following
conditions must be true:
o the user must own new
o the user must own the directory containing new
o new must be writable by the user
o the user must be a privileged user
SunOS 5.11 Last change: 4 Oct 2007 2
System Calls rename(2)
If the link named by new exists, the file's link count
becomes zero when it is removed, and no process has the file
open, then the space occupied by the file will be freed and
the file will no longer be accessible. If one or more
processes have the file open when the last link is removed,
the link will be removed before rename() or renameat()
returns, but the removal of the file contents will be post-
poned until all references to the file have been closed.
Upon successful completion, the rename() and renameat()
functions will mark for update the stctime and stmtime
fields of the parent directory of each file.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, 0 is returned. Otherwise, -1 is
returned and errno is set to indicate an error.
ERORS
The rename() function will fail if:
EACES A component of either path prefix denies
search permission; one of the directories
containing old and new denies write permis-
sions; or write permission is denied by a
directory pointed to by old or new.
EBUSY The new argument is a directory and the
mount point for a mounted file system.
EDQUOT The directory where the new name entry is
being placed cannot be extended because the
user's quota of disk blocks on that file
system has been exhausted.
EXIST The link named by new is a directory con-
taining entries other than `.' (the direc-
tory itself) and `..' (the parent direc-
tory).
EFAULT Either old or new references an invalid
address.
EILSEQ The path argument includes non-UTF8 charac-
ters and the file system accepts only file
names where all characters are part of the
UTF-8 character codeset.
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System Calls rename(2)
EINVAL The new argument directory pathname contains
a path prefix that names the old directory,
or an attempt was made to rename a regular
file to an extended attribute or from an
extended attribute to a regular file.
EIO An I/O error occurred while making or updat-
ing a directory entry.
EISDIR The new argument points to a directory but
old points to a file that is not a direc-
tory.
ELOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in
translating the pathname.
ENAMETOLONG The length of old or new exceeds PATHMAX,
or a pathname component is longer than
NAMEMAX while POSIXNOTRUNC is in effect.
EMLINK The file named by old is a directory, and
the link count of the parent directory of
new would exceed LINKMAX.
ENOENT The link named by old does not name an
existing file, a component of the path pre-
fix of new does not exist, or either old or
new points to an empty string.
ENOSPC The directory that would contain new cannot
be extended.
ENOTDIR A component of either path prefix is not a
directory, or old names a directory and new
names a file that is not a directory, or
tofd and dirfd in renameat() do not refer-
ence a directory.
EROFS The requested operation requires writing in
a directory on a read-only file system.
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System Calls rename(2)
EXDEV The links named by old and new are on dif-
ferent file systems.
The renameat() functions will fail if:
ENOTSUP An attempt was made to rename a regular file as
an attribute file or to rename an attribute file
as a regular file.
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability Committed
MT-Level Async-Signal-Safe
Standard For rename(), see standards(5).
SEE ALSO
chmod(2), link(2), unlink(2), attributes(5), fsattr(5),
standards(5)
NOTES
The system can deadlock if there is a loop in the file sys-
tem graph. Such a loop can occur if there is an entry in
directory a, a/name1, that is a hard link to directory b,
and an entry in directory b, b/name2, that is a hard link to
directory a. When such a loop exists and two separate
processes attempt to rename a/name1 to b/name2 and b/name2
to a/name1, the system may deadlock attempting to lock both
directories for modification. Use symbolic links instead of
hard links for directories.
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