Renaming the File

RENAMING THE FILE

The function rename (), as the name suggests, is used to rename a file. The prototype of the function is

int rename (const char *oldname, const char *newname)

Here, oldname specifies the pathname of the file to be renamed and newname gives the new pathname of the file. On success, rename () returns zero. In case of error, it will return a non-zero value and will set the errno to indicate the error. When an error occurs neither the file named by oldname nor the file named by newname shall be changed or created.

Points to remember about rename ()

• If the oldname specifies pathname of a file that is not a directory, the newname shall also not point to the pathname of a directory.

• If the oldname specifies the pathname of a directory then the newname shall not point to the pathname of a file that is not a directory. In this case, if the directory named by the newname already exists then it shall be removed and oldname will be renamed to newname.

Look at the program code given below which illustrates the use of rename ().

#include <stdio.h>

main()

{

int success=0;

success = rename ("comments.txt","feedback.txt");

if (success != 0)

printf("\n The file could not be renamed");

return 0;

}