NAME

       chdir, fchdir — change current working directory

LIBRARY

       Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int
       chdir(const char *path);

       int
       fchdir(int fd);

DESCRIPTION

       The  path  argument  points  to  the  pathname  of a directory.  The chdir() system call causes the named
       directory to become the current working directory, that is, the  starting  point  for  path  searches  of
       pathnames not beginning with a slash, ‘/’.

       The  fchdir()  system call causes the directory referenced by fd to become the current working directory,
       the starting point for path searches of pathnames not beginning with a slash, ‘/’.

       In order for a directory to become the current directory, a process must have execute (search) access  to
       the directory.

RETURN VALUES

       Upon  successful  completion,  the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global
       variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       The chdir() system call will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if one or  more  of
       the following are true:

       [ENOTDIR]          A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

       [ENAMETOOLONG]     A  component  of  a  pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded
                          1023 characters.

       [ENOENT]           The named directory does not exist.

       [ELOOP]            Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

       [EACCES]           Search permission is denied for any component of the path name.

       [EFAULT]           The path argument points outside the process's allocated address space.

       [EIO]              An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

       [EINTEGRITY]       Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.

       The fchdir() system call will fail and the current working directory will be unchanged if one or more  of
       the following are true:

       [EACCES]           Search permission is denied for the directory referenced by the file descriptor.

       [ENOTDIR]          The file descriptor does not reference a directory.

       [EBADF]            The argument fd is not a valid file descriptor.

SEE ALSO

       chroot(2)

STANDARDS

       The chdir() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY

       The chdir() system call appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.  The fchdir() system call appeared in 4.2BSD.

Debian                                           March 30, 2020                                         CHDIR(2)