CHDIR

Section: System Calls (2)
Updated: August 1, 1992
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

chdir - change current working directory  

SYNOPSIS

int chdir(const char *path);
 

DESCRIPTION

The chdir function causes the directory indicated by path to become the current working directory; that is, the starting point assumed for pathnames not beginning with ``/''.

If the chdir function fails, the current working directory is left unchanged.

In order for a directory to become the current directory, a process must have execute (search) access to the directory.  

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion, chdir returns a value of 0. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.  

ERRORS

If any of the following conditions occurs, the chdir function returns -1 and sets errno to the corresponding value:
[EACCES]
Search permission is denied for some component of the pathname.
[EFAULT]
The path argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
[EINVAL]
The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
[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 path exceeds 255 characters, or the entire pathname exceeds 1023 characters. For POSIX applications these values are given by the constants {NAME_MAX} and {PATH_MAX}, respectively.
[ENOENT]
The named directory does not exist or path is an empty string.
[ENOTDIR]
A component of is not a directory.
 

SEE ALSO

chroot(2), getwd(3) or getcwd(3P)


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
SEE ALSO

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 17:22:39 GMT, March 25, 2025