chdir(2) - Linux man page

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)

Referenced By

archive_write_disk(3), awffull(1), clone(2), fastrm(1), fts(3), ftw(3), innfeed(1), lam_rfposix(2), mc(1), path_resolution(7), pivot_root(2), pthreads(7), rmdir(2), star(1), syscalls(2), unshare(2), webalizer(1)