What happens when a process executes unlink(".");

[krishnampkkm]

hiii

What happens when a process executes unlink(".");
What is the current directory of the process ? (Assume superuser permissions are given.)


Thanking you
Krish

[Rubberman]

hiii

What happens when a process executes unlink(".");
What is the current directory of the process ? (Assume superuser permissions are given.)


Thanking you
Krish

Superuser permissions are irrelevant. When a process does an unlink of any file and/or directory, it decrements the link count of the file/directory, and the OS will not actually delete the file/directory until its link count == 0. When you cd to a directory, or open a file, the link count is incremented by one. So, when you unlink '.' (assuming it is empty, otherwise unlink() would return an error), you are still in that directory, even though it will not be visible to a user (the directory entry is gone, but not the directory itself). So, you can move to another directory (including '..'), at which time the link count will be decremented, and if it is 0 then the OS will physically remove it.