.\" This file is derived from unlink.2, which has the following copyright:
.\"
.\" --snip--
.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
.\"                               1993 Ian Jackson.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\"
.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
.\" professionally.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
.\" --snip--
.\"
.\" Edited into remove.3 shape by:
.\" Graeme W. Wilford (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk) on 13th July 1994
.\"
.TH REMOVE 3 2008-12-03 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
remove \- remove a file or directory
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <stdio.h>
.sp
.BI "int remove(const char *" pathname );
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR remove ()
deletes a name from the file system.
It calls
.BR unlink (2)
for files, and
.BR rmdir (2)
for directories.

If the removed name was the
last link to a file and no processes have the file open, the file is
deleted and the space it was using is made available for reuse.

If the name was the last link to a file,
but any processes still have the file open,
the file will remain in existence until the last file
descriptor referring to it is closed.

If the name referred to a symbolic link, the link is removed.

If the name referred to a socket, FIFO, or device, the name is removed,
but processes which have the object open may continue to use it.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
On success, zero is returned.
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set appropriately.
.SH ERRORS
The errors that occur are those for
.BR unlink (2)
and
.BR rmdir (2).
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
C89, C99, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
.SH NOTES
Under libc4 and libc5,
.BR remove ()
was an alias for
.BR unlink (2)
(and hence would not remove directories).
.SH BUGS
Infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS can cause the unexpected
disappearance of files which are still being used.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR rm (1),
.BR unlink (1),
.BR link (2),
.BR mknod (2),
.BR open (2),
.BR rename (2),
.BR rmdir (2),
.BR unlink (2),
.BR mkfifo (3),
.BR symlink (7)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
