RENAME(2)

NAME
rename - change the name of a file

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>

int rename (const char *from, const char *to);

DESCRIPTION
Rename 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.

CAVEATS
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 separate 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.

GNO does not currently support symbolic or multiple hard links, so the above paragraph and the final paragraph of the DESCRIPTION section does not apply.

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.

ERRORS
Rename will fail and neither of the argument files will be affected if:

    EINVAL
        Either pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.

    ENAMETOOLONG
        A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters, 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 permission.

    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 translating 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 implementation 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 directory.

    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 ALSO
open(2) symlink(7)

STANDARDS
Rename conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (POSIX).