remove

 

C

Language

Standard Library

Type support

Dynamic memory management

Error handling

Program utilities

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Thread support (C11)

Atomic operations (C11)

 

File input/output

Functions
File access
fopen freopen fclose fflush	fwide setbuf setvbuf
Direct input/output
fread
fwrite
Unformatted input/output
fgetc fgets fputc fputs getchar gets putchar puts ungetc	fgetwc fgetws fputwc fputws getwchar putwchar ungetwc
Formatted input/output
scanffscanfsscanf vscanfvfscanfvsscanf (C99)(C99)(C99) printffprintfsprintfsnprintf (C99) vprintfvfprintfvsprintfvsnprintf (C99)	wscanffwscanfswscanf vwscanfvfwscanfvswscanf (C99)(C99)(C99) wprintffwprintfswprintf vwprintfvfwprintfvswprintf
File positioning
ftell
fgetpos
fseek
fsetpos
rewind
Error handling
clearerr
feof
ferror
perror
Operations on files
remove
rename
tmpfile
tmpnam

 

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

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

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.

Example

remove with error checking. Code removes an existing file, then tries to remove a nonexisting file.

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    const char* file_name = "C:\\file.txt";
 
    FILE *fp = fopen(file_name,"w");
    if (fp == NULL)
    {
      perror("fopen()");
      fprintf(stderr,"fopen() failed in file %s at line # %d\n", __FILE__,__LINE__-4);
      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
 
    /* Normal processing continues here. */
    fclose(fp);
 
    system("ls");
 
    /* Remove an existing file. */
    int ret_code = remove(file_name);
    if (ret_code != 0)
    {
      perror("remove()");
      fprintf(stderr,"remove() failed in file %s at line # %d\n", __FILE__,__LINE__-4);
      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
 
    system("ls");
 
    /* Try removing a nonexisting file. */
    ret_code = remove(file_name);
    if (ret_code != 0)
    {
      perror("remove()");
      fprintf(stderr,"remove() failed in file %s at line # %d\n", __FILE__,__LINE__-4);
      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
 
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

remove(): No such file or directory
remove() failed in file main.cpp at line # 33
C:\file.txt
a.out
main.cpp
a.out
main.cpp

See also

rename	renames a file (function)
C++ documentation for remove