4.3BSD/usr/man/man2/rename.2

.\" 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	6.4 (Berkeley) 5/22/86
.\"
.TH RENAME 2 "May 22, 1986"
.UC 5
.SH NAME
rename \- change the name of a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ft B
.nf
rename(from, to)
char *from, *to;
.fi
.ft R
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Rename
causes the link named
.I from
to be renamed as
.IR to .
If 
.I to
exists, then it is first removed.
Both 
.I from
and
.I to
must be of the same type (that is, both directories or both
non-directories), and must reside on the same file system.
.PP
.I Rename
guarantees that an instance of
.I to
will always exist, even if the system should crash in
the middle of the operation.
.PP
If the final component of
.I from
is a symbolic link,
the symbolic link is renamed,
not the file or directory to which it points.
.SH 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.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
A 0 value is returned if the operation succeeds, otherwise
.I rename
returns \-1 and the global variable 
.I errno
indicates the reason for the failure.
.SH "ERRORS
.I Rename
will fail and neither of the argument files will be
affected if any of the following are true:
.TP 15
[EINVAL]
Either pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
.TP 15
[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters,
or the entire length of either path name exceeded 1023 characters.
.TP 15
[ENOENT]
A component of the \fIfrom\fP path does not exist,
or a path prefix of \FIto\fP does not exist.
.TP 15
[EACCES]
A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
.TP 15
[EACCES]
The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode
that denies write permission.
.TP 15
[EPERM]
The directory containing \fIfrom\fP is marked sticky,
and neither the containing directory nor \fIfrom\fP
are owned by the effective user ID.
.TP 15
[EPERM]
The \fIto\fP file exists,
the directory containing \fIto\fP is marked sticky,
and neither the containing directory nor \fIto\fP
are owned by the effective user ID.
.TP 15
[ELOOP]
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating either pathname.
.TP 15
[ENOTDIR]
A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
.TP 15
[ENOTDIR]
.I From
is a directory, but \fIto\fP is not a directory.
.TP 15
[EISDIR]
.I To
is a directory, but \fIfrom\fP is not a directory.
.TP 15
[EXDEV]
The link named by \fIto\fP and the file named by \fIfrom\fP
are on different logical devices (file systems).  Note that this error
code will not be returned if the implementation permits cross-device
links.
.TP 15
[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.
.TP 15
[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.
.TP 15
[EIO]
An I/O error occurred while making or updating a directory entry.
.TP 15
[EROFS]
The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file
system.
.TP 15
[EFAULT]
.I Path
points outside the process's allocated address space.
.TP 15
[EINVAL]
.I From
is a parent directory of
.IR to ,
or an attempt is made to rename ``.'' or ``..''.
.TP 15
[ENOTEMPTY]
.I To
is a directory and is not empty.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
open(2)