NAME rename - change the name of a file SYNOPSIS rename(from, to) char *from, *to; DESCRIPTION Rename causes the link named "from" to be renamed as "to". If to exists, then it is first removed. Both from and to must be of the same type (i.e., both directories or both non-directories), and must reside on the same file system. Rename guarantees that an instance of to will always exist, even if the system should crash in the middle of the operation. 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 a, say a/foo, being a hard link to directory b, and an entry in directory b, say b/bar, being a hard link to directory a. When such a loop exists and two separate processes attempt to perform rename a/foo b/bar and rename b/bar a/foo, respectively, the system may deadlock attempting to lock both directories for modification. On systems with a symbolic link capability, hard links to directories should be replaced by symbolic links by the system administrator. RETURN VALUE A 0 value is returned if the operation succeeds, otherwise rename returns -1 and the global variable errno indicates the reason for the failure. ERRORS Rename will fail and nothing will change if any of the following are true: [ENOTDIR] A component of either path prefix is not a directory. [ENOENT] A component of either path prefix does not exist. [EACCES] A component of either path prefix denies search permission. [ENOENT] The file named by from does not exist. [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. [EACCES] The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode that denies write permission. [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. SEE ALSO open(2)