xref: /freebsd-13.1/lib/libc/sys/chdir.2 (revision e42b0964)
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28.\"     @(#)chdir.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
29.\" $FreeBSD$
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31.Dd March 30, 2020
32.Dt CHDIR 2
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm chdir ,
36.Nm fchdir
37.Nd change current working directory
38.Sh LIBRARY
39.Lb libc
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.In unistd.h
42.Ft int
43.Fn chdir "const char *path"
44.Ft int
45.Fn fchdir "int fd"
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Fa path
49argument points to the pathname of a directory.
50The
51.Fn chdir
52system call
53causes the named directory
54to become the current working directory, that is,
55the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with
56a slash,
57.Ql / .
58.Pp
59The
60.Fn fchdir
61system call
62causes the directory referenced by
63.Fa fd
64to become the current working directory,
65the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with
66a slash,
67.Ql / .
68.Pp
69In order for a directory to become the current directory,
70a process must have execute (search) access to the directory.
71.Sh RETURN VALUES
72.Rv -std
73.Sh ERRORS
74The
75.Fn chdir
76system call
77will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if
78one or more of the following are true:
79.Bl -tag -width Er
80.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
81A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
82.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
83A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
84or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
85.It Bq Er ENOENT
86The named directory does not exist.
87.It Bq Er ELOOP
88Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
89.It Bq Er EACCES
90Search permission is denied for any component of
91the path name.
92.It Bq Er EFAULT
93The
94.Fa path
95argument
96points outside the process's allocated address space.
97.It Bq Er EIO
98An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
99.It Bq Er EINTEGRITY
100Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
101.El
102.Pp
103The
104.Fn fchdir
105system call
106will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if
107one or more of the following are true:
108.Bl -tag -width Er
109.It Bq Er EACCES
110Search permission is denied for the directory referenced by the
111file descriptor.
112.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
113The file descriptor does not reference a directory.
114.It Bq Er EBADF
115The argument
116.Fa fd
117is not a valid file descriptor.
118.El
119.Sh SEE ALSO
120.Xr chroot 2
121.Sh STANDARDS
122The
123.Fn chdir
124system call is expected to conform to
125.St -p1003.1-90 .
126.Sh HISTORY
127The
128.Fn chdir
129system call appeared in
130.At v1 .
131The
132.Fn fchdir
133system call appeared in
134.Bx 4.2 .
135