Name

chdir, fchdir — change working directory

Synopsis

#include <unistd.h>
int chdir( const char *  path);
int fchdir( int   fd);

DESCRIPTION

chdir() changes the current working directory to that specified in path.

fchdir() is identical to chdir(); the only difference is that the directory is given as an open file descriptor.

RETURN VALUE

On success, zero is returned. On error, −1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

Depending on the file system, other errors can be returned. The more general errors for chdir() are listed below:

EACCES

Search permission is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix of path. (See also path_resolution(2).)

EFAULT

path points outside your accessible address space.

EIO

An I/O error occurred.

ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.

ENAMETOOLONG

path is too long.

ENOENT

The file does not exist.

ENOMEM

Insufficient kernel memory was available.

ENOTDIR

A component of path is not a directory.

The general errors for fchdir() are listed below:

EACCES

Search permission was denied on the directory open on fd.

EBADF

fd is not a valid file descriptor.

NOTES

A child process created via fork(2) inherits its parent's current working directory. The current working directory is left unchanged by execve(2).

The prototype for fchdir() is only available if _BSD_SOURCE is defined, or _XOPEN_SOURCE is defined with the value 500.

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, 4.4BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

SEE ALSO

chroot(2), path_resolution(2), getcwd(3)


Copyright (c) 1992 Drew Eckhardt (drew@cs.colorado.edu), March 28, 1992

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.

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permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
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Modified by Michael Haardt <michael@moria.de>
Modified 1993-07-21 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
Modified 1995-04-15 by Michael Chastain <mec@shell.portal.com>:
  Added 'fchdir'. Fixed bugs in error section.
Modified 1996-10-21 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
Modified 1997-08-21 by Joseph S. Myers <jsm28@cam.ac.uk>
Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>