mkdir(3p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | EXAMPLES | APPLICATION USAGE | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

MKDIR(3P)               POSIX Programmer's Manual               MKDIR(3P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
       the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       mkdir, mkdirat — make a directory

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <sys/stat.h>

       int mkdir(const char *path, mode_t mode);

       #include <fcntl.h>

       int mkdirat(int fd, const char *path, mode_t mode);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The mkdir() function shall create a new directory with name path.
       The file permission bits of the new directory shall be initialized
       from mode.  These file permission bits of the mode argument shall
       be modified by the process' file creation mask.

       When bits in mode other than the file permission bits are set, the
       meaning of these additional bits is implementation-defined.

       The directory's user ID shall be set to the process' effective
       user ID.  The directory's group ID shall be set to the group ID of
       the parent directory or to the effective group ID of the process.
       Implementations shall provide a way to initialize the directory's
       group ID to the group ID of the parent directory. Implementations
       may, but need not, provide an implementation-defined way to
       initialize the directory's group ID to the effective group ID of
       the calling process.

       The newly created directory shall be an empty directory.

       If path names a symbolic link, mkdir() shall fail and set errno to
       [EEXIST].

       Upon successful completion, mkdir() shall mark for update the last
       data access, last data modification, and last file status change
       timestamps of the directory. Also, the last data modification and
       last file status change timestamps of the directory that contains
       the new entry shall be marked for update.

       The mkdirat() function shall be equivalent to the mkdir() function
       except in the case where path specifies a relative path. In this
       case the newly created directory is created relative to the
       directory associated with the file descriptor fd instead of the
       current working directory. If the access mode of the open file
       description associated with the file descriptor is not O_SEARCH,
       the function shall check whether directory searches are permitted
       using the current permissions of the directory underlying the file
       descriptor. If the access mode is O_SEARCH, the function shall not
       perform the check.

       If mkdirat() is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in the fd
       parameter, the current working directory shall be used and the
       behavior shall be identical to a call to mkdir().

RETURN VALUE         top

       Upon successful completion, these functions shall return 0.
       Otherwise, these functions shall return -1 and set errno to
       indicate the error. If -1 is returned, no directory shall be
       created.

ERRORS         top

       These functions shall fail if:

       EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path
              prefix, or write permission is denied on the parent
              directory of the directory to be created.

       EEXIST The named file exists.

       ELOOP  A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during
              resolution of the path argument.

       EMLINK The link count of the parent directory would exceed
              {LINK_MAX}.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The length of a component of a pathname is longer than
              {NAME_MAX}.

       ENOENT A component of the path prefix specified by path does not
              name an existing directory or path is an empty string.

       ENOSPC The file system does not contain enough space to hold the
              contents of the new directory or to extend the parent
              directory of the new directory.

       ENOTDIR
              A component of the path prefix names an existing file that
              is neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a directory.

       EROFS  The parent directory resides on a read-only file system.

       In addition, the mkdirat() function shall fail if:

       EACCES The access mode of the open file description associated
              with fd is not O_SEARCH and the permissions of the
              directory underlying fd do not permit directory searches.

       EBADF  The path argument does not specify an absolute path and the
              fd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor
              open for reading or searching.

       ENOTDIR
              The path argument is not an absolute path and fd is a file
              descriptor associated with a non-directory file.

       These functions may fail if:

       ELOOP  More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered
              during resolution of the path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or pathname
              resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate
              result with a length that exceeds {PATH_MAX}.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES         top

   Creating a Directory
       The following example shows how to create a directory named
       /home/cnd/mod1, with read/write/search permissions for owner and
       group, and with read/search permissions for others.

           #include <sys/types.h>
           #include <sys/stat.h>

           int status;
           ...
           status = mkdir("/home/cnd/mod1", S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IROTH | S_IXOTH);

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       None.

RATIONALE         top

       The mkdir() function originated in 4.2 BSD and was added to System
       V in Release 3.0.

       4.3 BSD detects [ENAMETOOLONG].

       The POSIX.1‐1990 standard required that the group ID of a newly
       created directory be set to the group ID of its parent directory
       or to the effective group ID of the creating process. FIPS 151‐2
       required that implementations provide a way to have the group ID
       be set to the group ID of the containing directory, but did not
       prohibit implementations also supporting a way to set the group ID
       to the effective group ID of the creating process.  Conforming
       applications should not assume which group ID will be used. If it
       matters, an application can use chown() to set the group ID after
       the directory is created, or determine under what conditions the
       implementation will set the desired group ID.

       The purpose of the mkdirat() function is to create a directory in
       directories other than the current working directory without
       exposure to race conditions. Any part of the path of a file could
       be changed in parallel to the call to mkdir(), resulting in
       unspecified behavior. By opening a file descriptor for the target
       directory and using the mkdirat() function it can be guaranteed
       that the newly created directory is located relative to the
       desired directory.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       chmod(3p), mkdtemp(3p), mknod(3p), umask(3p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, fcntl.h(0p),
       sys_stat.h(0p), sys_types.h(0p)

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
       Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any discrepancy between
       this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard,
       the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
       document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
       http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group                2017                         MKDIR(3P)

Pages that refer to this page: sys_stat.h(0p)mkdir(1p)pax(1p)chmod(3p)mkdtemp(3p)mknod(3p)rmdir(3p)umask(3p)