mkdir

- make directories

Synopsis

/usr/bin/mkdir

/usr/bin/mkdir [-m mode] [-p] dir...

ksh93

mkdir [-p] [-m mode] dir...

Description

/usr/bin/mkdir

The mkdir command creates the named directories in mode 777 (possibly altered by the file mode creation mask umask(1)).

Standard entries in a directory (for instance, the files “.”, for the directory itself, and “. .”, for its parent) are made automatically. mkdir cannot create these entries by name. Creation of a directory requires write permission in the parent directory.

The owner-ID and group-ID of the new directories are set to the process's effective user-ID and group-ID, respectively. mkdir calls the mkdir(2) system call.

setgid and mkdir

To change the setgid bit on a newly created directory, you must use chmod g+s or chmod g-s after executing mkdir.

The setgid bit setting is inherited from the parent directory.

ksh93

The mkdir built-in in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin paths. It is invoked when mkdir is executed without a pathname prefix and the pathname search finds a /bin/mkdir or /usr/bin/mkdir executable. mkdir creates one or more directories. By default, the mode of created directories is a=rwx minus the bits set in umask(1).

Options

/usr/bin/mkdir

The following options are supported by /usr/bin/mkdir:

-m mode

This option allows users to specify the mode to be used for new directories. Choices for modes can be found in chmod(1).

-p

With this option, mkdir creates dir by creating all the non-existing parent directories first. The mode given to intermediate directories is the difference between 777 and the bits set in the file mode creation mask. The difference, however, must be at least 300 (write and execute permission for the user).

ksh93

The following options are supported by the mkdir built-in in ksh93:

-m mode

--mode=mode

Set the mode of created directories to mode. mode is symbolic or octal mode as in chmod(1). Relative modes assume an initial mode of a=rwx.

-p

--parents

Create any missing intermediate pathname components. For each dir operand that does not name an existing directory, effects equivalent to those caused by the following command shall occur:

mkdir -p -m $(umask -S),u+wx \
     $(dirname dir) && mkdir [-m mode] dir

Where the -m mode option represents that option supplied to the original invocation of mkdir, if any. Each dir operand that names an existing directory is ignored without error.

Operands

The following operand is supported:

dir

A path name of a directory to be created.

Usage

See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mkdir when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2³¹ bytes).

Examples

Example 1 Using mkdir

The following example:

example% mkdir -p ltr/jd/jan

creates the subdirectory structure ltr/jd/jan.

Environment Variables

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of mkdir: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:

0

All the specified directories were created successfully or the -p option was specified and all the specified directories now exist.

>0

An error occurred.

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

/usr/bin/mkdir

ksh93

The ksh93 built-in binding to /bin and /usr/bin is Volatile. The built-in interfaces are Uncommitted.

See Also

chmod(1), ksh93(1), rm(1), sh(1), umask(1), Intro(2), mkdir(2), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)