Re: remove() only works on files

[Eric Blake <eblake at redhat dot com>]

On 04/15/2011 05:16 AM, Schwarz, Konrad wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: newlib-owner@sourceware.org 
>> [mailto:newlib-owner@sourceware.org] On Behalf Of David A. Ramos
>> Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 9:10 AM
>> To: newlib@sourceware.org
>> Subject: Bug: remove() only works on files
> 
>> My understanding of ISO C's remove() function is that it 
>> should work for both files and directories. That is, it 
>> should call unlink() or rmdir(), respectively. However, the 
>> code in newlib/libc/stdio/remove.c just forwards the call to 
>> unlink(), which fails for directories.
> 
> Standard C's library does not know about heirarchical file systems
> -- there is no way of creating, deleting, or listing directories.
> 
> remove() is specified only for files.

Wrong.  POSIX explicitly requires remove() to work on all file types,
including directories, as an extension to C99:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/remove.html

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake@redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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