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MKDIR

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 2008-05-13
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

mkdir - create a directory  

SYNOPSIS

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

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

DESCRIPTION

mkdir() attempts to create a directory named pathname.

The argument mode specifies the permissions to use. It is modified by the process's umask in the usual way: the permissions of the created directory are (mode & ~umask & 0777). Other mode bits of the created directory depend on the operating system. For Linux, see below.

The newly created directory will be owned by the effective user ID of the process. If the directory containing the file has the set-group-ID bit set, or if the file system is mounted with BSD group semantics (mount -o bsdgroups or, synonymously mount -o grpid), the new directory will inherit the group ownership from its parent; otherwise it will be owned by the effective group ID of the process.

If the parent directory has the set-group-ID bit set then so will the newly created directory.  

RETURN VALUE

mkdir() returns zero on success, or -1 if an error occurred (in which case, errno is set appropriately).  

ERRORS

EACCES
The parent directory does not allow write permission to the process, or one of the directories in pathname did not allow search permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EEXIST
pathname already exists (not necessarily as a directory). This includes the case where pathname is a symbolic link, dangling or not.
EFAULT
pathname points outside your accessible address space.
ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.
ENAMETOOLONG
pathname was too long.
ENOENT
A directory component in pathname does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOSPC
The device containing pathname has no room for the new directory.
ENOSPC
The new directory cannot be created because the user's disk quota is exhausted.
ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in pathname is not, in fact, a directory.
EPERM
The file system containing pathname does not support the creation of directories.
EROFS
pathname refers to a file on a read-only file system.
 

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, BSD, POSIX.1-2001.  

NOTES

Under Linux apart from the permission bits, only the S_ISVTX mode bit is honored. That is, under Linux the created directory actually gets mode (mode & ~umask & 01777). See also stat(2).

There are many infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS. Some of these affect mkdir().  

SEE ALSO

mkdir(1), chmod(2), chown(2), mkdirat(2), mknod(2), mount(2), rmdir(2), stat(2), umask(2), unlink(2), path_resolution(7)  

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
CONFORMING TO
NOTES
SEE ALSO
COLOPHON
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Time: 05:33:04 GMT, December 24, 2015