Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution. @(#)rename.2 5.1 (Berkeley) 05/15/85 RENAME 2 "12 February 1983"
C 5 NAME
rename - change the name of a file
SYNOPSIS
rename(from, to)
char *from, *to;
DESCRIPTION
Rename causes the link named
from to be renamed as
to . If
to exists, then 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.
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 \*(lqa\*(rq,
say \*(
lqa/
foo\*(rq,
being a hard link to directory \*(lqb\*(rq, and an entry in
directory \*(lqb\*(rq, say \*(
lqb/
bar\*(rq, being a hard link
to directory \*(lqa\*(rq.
When such a loop exists and two separate processes attempt to
perform \*(lqrename
a/
foo b/
bar\*(rq and \*(lqrename
b/
bar a/
foo\*(rq,
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 VALUE"
A 0 value is returned if the operation succeeds, otherwise
rename returns -1 and the global variable
errno indicates the reason for the failure.
"ERRORS
Rename will fail and neither of the argument files will be
affected if any of the following are true:
15
[ENOTDIR]
A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
15
[ENOENT]
A component of either path prefix does not exist.
15
[EACCES]
A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
15
[ENOENT]
The file named by from does not exist.
15
[EPERM]
The file named by from is a directory and the effective
user ID is not super-user.
15
[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 implementation permits cross-device
links.
15
[EACCES]
The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode
that denies write permission.
15
[EROFS]
The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file
system.
15
[EFAULT]
Path points outside the process's allocated address space.
15
[EINVAL]
From is a parent directory of
to .
"SEE ALSO"
open(2)