xref: /freebsd-14.2/lib/libc/sys/chdir.2 (revision b2c76c41)
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28.\"     @(#)chdir.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
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30.Dd March 30, 2020
31.Dt CHDIR 2
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm chdir ,
35.Nm fchdir
36.Nd change current working directory
37.Sh LIBRARY
38.Lb libc
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In unistd.h
41.Ft int
42.Fn chdir "const char *path"
43.Ft int
44.Fn fchdir "int fd"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Fa path
48argument points to the pathname of a directory.
49The
50.Fn chdir
51system call
52causes the named directory
53to become the current working directory, that is,
54the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with
55a slash,
56.Ql / .
57.Pp
58The
59.Fn fchdir
60system call
61causes the directory referenced by
62.Fa fd
63to become the current working directory,
64the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with
65a slash,
66.Ql / .
67.Pp
68In order for a directory to become the current directory,
69a process must have execute (search) access to the directory.
70.Sh RETURN VALUES
71.Rv -std
72.Sh ERRORS
73The
74.Fn chdir
75system call
76will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if
77one or more of the following are true:
78.Bl -tag -width Er
79.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
80A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
81.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
82A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
83or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
84.It Bq Er ENOENT
85The named directory does not exist.
86.It Bq Er ELOOP
87Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
88.It Bq Er EACCES
89Search permission is denied for any component of
90the path name.
91.It Bq Er EFAULT
92The
93.Fa path
94argument
95points outside the process's allocated address space.
96.It Bq Er EIO
97An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
98.It Bq Er EINTEGRITY
99Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
100.El
101.Pp
102The
103.Fn fchdir
104system call
105will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if
106one or more of the following are true:
107.Bl -tag -width Er
108.It Bq Er EACCES
109Search permission is denied for the directory referenced by the
110file descriptor.
111.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
112The file descriptor does not reference a directory.
113.It Bq Er EBADF
114The argument
115.Fa fd
116is not a valid file descriptor.
117.El
118.Sh SEE ALSO
119.Xr chroot 2
120.Sh STANDARDS
121The
122.Fn chdir
123system call is expected to conform to
124.St -p1003.1-90 .
125.Sh HISTORY
126The
127.Fn chdir
128system call appeared in
129.At v1 .
130The
131.Fn fchdir
132system call appeared in
133.Bx 4.2 .
134