CHDIR(2) |
System Calls Manual |
CHDIR(2) |
NAME
chdir, fchdir — change current working directory
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
chdir(const char *path);
int
fchdir(int fd);
DESCRIPTION
The
path argument points to the pathname of a directory. The
chdir() function causes the named directory to become the current working directory, that is, the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with a slash, ‘
/
’.
The fchdir() function causes the directory referenced by fd to become the current working directory, the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with a slash, ‘/
’.
In order for a directory to become the current directory, a process must have execute (search) access to the directory.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
chdir() will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if one or more of the following are true:
-
[EACCES]
-
Search permission is denied for any component of the path name.
-
[EFAULT]
-
path points outside the process's allocated address space.
-
[EIO]
-
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
-
[ELOOP]
-
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
-
[ENAMETOOLONG]
-
A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.
-
[ENOENT]
-
The named directory does not exist.
-
[ENOTDIR]
-
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
fchdir() will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if one or more of the following are true:
-
[EACCES]
-
Search permission is denied for the directory referenced by the file descriptor.
-
[EBADF]
-
The argument fd is not a valid file descriptor.
-
[ENOTDIR]
-
The file descriptor does not reference a directory.
-
[EPERM]
-
The argument fd references a directory which is not at or below the current process's root directory.
STANDARDS
The chdir() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
The fchdir() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.