Deleting a file in C
Author
Umm, this is kind of embarasing, but so far, in my 3 years of C I never needed to delete a file.
I think that the function is unlink() but I am not 100% sure (from what I read, it does some fancy things, such as decrementing the refference count and such).
So, is unlink() the [only/right] way to delete a file?
P.S. I need a generic C function, not windows or something.
unlink is a POSIX function that generally isn't available on Windows (although VC++ does emulate it). I don't know if there is a general delete file function.
Author
Well, DevC++ (gcc) seems to know about it.
This is for an MMORPG server and it will run on Posix (FreeBSD), and on Windows for local testing.
If VC can also emulate it, the better (one developer has VC).
This is for an MMORPG server and it will run on Posix (FreeBSD), and on Windows for local testing.
If VC can also emulate it, the better (one developer has VC).
Googled and found this:
remove
remove
Quote:
int remove ( const char * filename );
Delete a file.
Deletes the file specified by filename. It is compiled as a call to the system function for deleting files (unlink, erase or del).
Parameters.
filename
Path and name of the file to be removed.
Return Value.
If the file is succesfully deleted a 0 value is returned.
On error a non-zero value is returned and the errno variable is set with the corresponding error code that that can be printed with a call to perror:
remove() is not standard. unlink() is the POSIX standard -- the talk about "reference counts" is what "delete a file" really means on UNIX systems. Usually, it just removes the file (unless there are multiple hard links).
Quote:Original post by hplus0603
remove() is not standard. unlink() is the POSIX standard -- the talk about "reference counts" is what "delete a file" really means on UNIX systems. Usually, it just removes the file (unless there are multiple hard links).
Now where'd you learn that? I have multiple sources that say remove is standard:
Quote:From subpages of http://www.unix.org/version3/apis.html, previously linked in this thread:POSIX P96Interface XSI Base U98 U95 P92 C99 C89 SVID3 BSD[...]remove() m m m m m m m m .[...]unlink() m m m m m . . m m[...]m Indicates that the interface is defined as mandatory.[...]. Indicates that the interface is not specified.
Quote:From panda@industry:~$ man 3 remove:NAME remove - delete a name and possibly the file it refers toSYNOPSIS #include <stdio.h> int remove(const char *pathname);[...]CONFORMING TO ANSI C, SVID, AT&T, POSIX, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3
This book on ANSI C by Kernighan and Ritchie and Bell Labs (who wrote the language, I believe), has remove() as a standard library function.
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