Command Section

RENAME(2)                 FreeBSD System Calls Manual                RENAME(2)

NAME
     rename - change the name of a file

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <stdio.h>

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

     int
     renameat(int fromfd, const char *from, int tofd, const char *to);

DESCRIPTION
     The rename() system call 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.

     The rename() system call guarantees that if to already exists, 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.

     If from and to resolve to the same directory entry, or to different
     directory entries for the same existing file, rename() returns success
     without taking any further action.

     The renameat() system call is equivalent to rename() except in the case
     where either from or to specifies a relative path.  If from is a relative
     path, the file to be renamed is located relative to the directory
     associated with the file descriptor fromfd instead of the current working
     directory.  If the to is a relative path, the same happens only relative
     to the directory associated with tofd.  If the renameat() is passed the
     special value AT_FDCWD in the fromfd or tofd parameter, the current
     working directory is used in the determination of the file for the
     respective path parameter.

RETURN VALUES
     The rename() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS
     The rename() system call will fail and neither of the argument files will
     be affected if:

     [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.

     [EACCES]           The directory pointed at by the from argument denies
                        write permission, and the operation would move it to
                        another parent directory.

     [EPERM]            The file pointed at by the from argument has its
                        immutable, undeletable or append-only flag set, see
                        the chflags(2) manual page for more information.

     [EPERM]            The parent directory of the file pointed at by the
                        from argument has its immutable or append-only flag
                        set.

     [EPERM]            The parent directory of the file pointed at by the to
                        argument has its immutable flag set.

     [EPERM]            The directory containing from is marked sticky, and
                        neither the containing directory nor from are owned by
                        the effective user ID.

     [EPERM]            The file pointed at by the to argument 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]          The from argument is a directory, but to is not a
                        directory.

     [EISDIR]           The to argument 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.

     [EINTEGRITY]       Corrupted data was detected while reading from the
                        file system.

     [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]           The from argument is a parent directory of to, or an
                        attempt is made to rename `.' or `..'.

     [ENOTEMPTY]        The to argument is a directory and is not empty.

     [ECAPMODE]         rename() was called and the process is in capability
                        mode.

     In addition to the errors returned by the rename(), the renameat() may
     fail if:

     [EBADF]            The from argument does not specify an absolute path
                        and the fromfd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a
                        valid file descriptor open for searching, or the to
                        argument does not specify an absolute path and the
                        tofd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file
                        descriptor open for searching.

     [ENOTDIR]          The from argument is not an absolute path and fromfd
                        is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated
                        with a directory, or the to argument is not an
                        absolute path and tofd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file
                        descriptor associated with a directory.

     [ECAPMODE]         AT_FDCWD is specified and the process is in capability
                        mode.

     [ENOTCAPABLE]      path is an absolute path or contained a ".." component
                        leading to a directory outside of the directory
                        hierarchy specified by fromfd or tofd.

     [ENOTCAPABLE]      The fromfd file descriptor lacks the
                        CAP_RENAMEAT_SOURCE right, or the tofd file descriptor
                        lacks the CAP_RENAMEAT_TARGET right.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(2), open(2), symlink(7)

STANDARDS
     The rename() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996
     ("POSIX.1").  The renameat() system call follows The Open Group Extended
     API Set 2 specification.

HISTORY
     The renameat() system call appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6         March 30, 2020         FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6

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