chdir(2)

chdir, fchdir -- change working directory

Synopsis

   #include <unistd.h>
   
   int chdir(const char path);
   

   int fchdir(int fildes);

Description

chdir and fchdir cause a directory pointed to by path or fildes to become the current working directory, the starting point for path searches for pathnames not beginning with /. path points to the pathname of a directory. The fildes argument to fchdir is an open file descriptor of a directory.

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

Return values

On success, chdir returns 0. On failure, chdir returns -1, sets errno to identify the error, and the current directory remains unchanged.

In the following conditions, chdir fails and sets errno to:

EACCES: Search permission is denied for any component of the pathname.
EFAULT: path points outside the allocated address space of the process.
EINTR: A signal was caught during the execution of the chdir system call.
EIO: An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
ELOOP: Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating path.
ENAMETOOLONG: The length of the path argument exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or the length of a path component exceeds {NAME_MAX} while _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is in effect.
ENOTDIR: A component of the pathname is not a directory.
ENOENT: Either a component of the path prefix or the directory named by path does not exist or is a null pathname.
ENOLINK: path points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active.
EMULTIHOP: Components of path require hopping to multiple remote machines and file system type does not allow it.

In the following conditions, fchdir fails and sets errno to:

EACCES: Search permission is denied for fildes.
EBADF: fildes is not an open file descriptor.
EINTR: A signal was caught during the execution of the fchdir system call.
EIO: An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
ENOLINK: fildes points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active.
ENOTDIR: The open file descriptor fildes does not refer to a directory.
ENOENT: The directory pointed to by fildes does not exist.

References

chroot(2)

Notices

Considerations for threads programming

Both current working directory and current root directory are process attributes and are shared by all related threads. A change by one thread will be shared by all siblings.