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remove

Defined in header `<stdio.h>`
int remove( const char *fname );

Deletes the file identified by character string pointed to by fname.

If the file is currently open by this or another process, the behavior of this function is implementation-defined (in particular, POSIX systems unlink the file name although the file system space is not reclaimed until the last running process closes the file; Windows does not allow the file to be deleted).

Parameters

fname

pointer to a null-terminated string containing the path identifying the file to delete

Return value

0 upon success or non-zero value on error.

Notes

POSIX specifies many additional details for the behavior of this function.

Example

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
    FILE* fp = fopen("file1.txt", "w"); // create file
    if(!fp) { perror("file1.txt"); return 1; }
    puts("Created file1.txt");
    fclose(fp);
 
    int rc = remove("file1.txt");
    if(rc) { perror("remove"); return 1; }
    puts("Removed file1.txt");
 
    fp = fopen("file1.txt", "r"); // Failure: file does not exist
    if(!fp) perror("Opening removed file failed");
 
    rc = remove("file1.txt"); // Failure: file does not exist
    if(rc) perror("Double-remove failed");
}

Output:

Created file1.txt
Removed file1.txt
Opening removed file failed: No such file or directory
Double-remove failed: No such file or directory

References

C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

7.21.4.1 The remove function (p: 302)

C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

7.19.4.1 The remove function (p: 268)

C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

4.9.4.1 The remove function