This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
Contents
Application Usage
None.
Copyright
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 CHDIR(3POSIX)
Description
The chdir() function shall cause the directory named by the pathname pointed to by the path argument to
become the current working directory; that is, the starting point for path searches for pathnames not
beginning with '/'.
Errors
The chdir() function shall fail if:
EACCES Search permission is denied for any component of the pathname.
ELOOP A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of a component of a pathname is longer than {NAME_MAX}.
ENOENT A component of path does not name an existing directory or path is an empty string.
ENOTDIR
A component of the pathname names an existing file that is neither a directory nor a symbolic link
to a directory.
The chdir() function 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}.
Thefollowingsectionsareinformative.Examples
ChangingtheCurrentWorkingDirectory
The following example makes the value pointed to by directory, /tmp, the current working directory.
#include <unistd.h>
...
char *directory = "/tmp";
int ret;
ret = chdir (directory);
Future Directions
None.
Name
chdir — change working directory
Prolog
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.
Rationale
The chdir() function only affects the working directory of the current process.
Return Value
Upon successful completion, 0 shall be returned. Otherwise, -1 shall be returned, the current working
directory shall remain unchanged, and errno shall be set to indicate the error.
See Also
getcwd()
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <unistd.h>Synopsis
#include <unistd.h>
int chdir(const char *path);
