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@(#)open.2 8.2 (Berkeley) 11/16/93
$FreeBSD: releng/10.2/lib/libc/sys/open.2 282962 2015-05-15 11:07:49Z trasz $
.Dd April 2, 2015 .Dt OPEN 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm open , openat .Nd open or create a file for reading, writing or executing .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS n fcntl.h .Ft int .Fn open "const char *path" "int flags" "..." .Ft int .Fn openat "int fd" "const char *path" "int flags" "..." .Sh DESCRIPTION The file name specified by .Fa path is opened for either execution or reading and/or writing as specified by the argument .Fa flags and the file descriptor returned to the calling process. The .Fa flags argument may indicate the file is to be created if it does not exist (by specifying the .Dv O_CREAT flag). In this case .Fn open and .Fn openat require an additional argument .Fa "mode_t mode" , and the file is created with mode .Fa mode as described in .Xr chmod 2 and modified by the process' umask value (see .Xr umask 2 ) .
p The .Fn openat function is equivalent to the .Fn open function except in the case where the .Fa path specifies a relative path. In this case the file to be opened is determined relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor .Fa fd instead of the current working directory. The .Fa flag parameter and the optional fourth parameter correspond exactly to the parameters of .Fn open . If .Fn openat is passed the special value .Dv AT_FDCWD in the .Fa fd parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical to a call to .Fn open .
p The flags specified are formed by .Em or Ns 'ing the following values
p d -literal -offset indent -compact O_RDONLY open for reading only O_WRONLY open for writing only O_RDWR open for reading and writing O_EXEC open for execute only O_NONBLOCK do not block on open O_APPEND append on each write O_CREAT create file if it does not exist O_TRUNC truncate size to 0 O_EXCL error if create and file exists O_SHLOCK atomically obtain a shared lock O_EXLOCK atomically obtain an exclusive lock O_DIRECT eliminate or reduce cache effects O_FSYNC synchronous writes O_SYNC synchronous writes O_NOFOLLOW do not follow symlinks O_NOCTTY ignored O_TTY_INIT ignored O_DIRECTORY error if file is not a directory O_CLOEXEC set FD_CLOEXEC upon open .Ed
p Opening a file with .Dv O_APPEND set causes each write on the file to be appended to the end. If .Dv O_TRUNC is specified and the file exists, the file is truncated to zero length. If .Dv O_EXCL is set with .Dv O_CREAT and the file already exists, .Fn open returns an error. This may be used to implement a simple exclusive access locking mechanism. If .Dv O_EXCL is set and the last component of the pathname is a symbolic link, .Fn open will fail even if the symbolic link points to a non-existent name. If the .Dv O_NONBLOCK flag is specified and the .Fn open system call would result in the process being blocked for some reason (e.g., waiting for carrier on a dialup line), .Fn open returns immediately. The descriptor remains in non-blocking mode for subsequent operations.
p If .Dv O_FSYNC is used in the mask, all writes will immediately be written to disk, the kernel will not cache written data and all writes on the descriptor will not return until the data to be written completes.
p .Dv O_SYNC is a synonym for .Dv O_FSYNC required by .Tn POSIX .
p If .Dv O_NOFOLLOW is used in the mask and the target file passed to .Fn open is a symbolic link then the .Fn open will fail.
p When opening a file, a lock with .Xr flock 2 semantics can be obtained by setting .Dv O_SHLOCK for a shared lock, or .Dv O_EXLOCK for an exclusive lock. If creating a file with .Dv O_CREAT , the request for the lock will never fail (provided that the underlying file system supports locking).
p .Dv O_DIRECT may be used to minimize or eliminate the cache effects of reading and writing. The system will attempt to avoid caching the data you read or write. If it cannot avoid caching the data, it will minimize the impact the data has on the cache. Use of this flag can drastically reduce performance if not used with care.
p .Dv O_NOCTTY may be used to ensure the OS does not assign this file as the controlling terminal when it opens a tty device. This is the default on .Fx , but is present for .Tn POSIX compatibility. The .Fn open system call will not assign controlling terminals on .Fx .
p .Dv O_TTY_INIT may be used to ensure the OS restores the terminal attributes when initially opening a TTY. This is the default on .Fx , but is present for .Tn POSIX compatibility. The initial call to .Fn open on a TTY will always restore default terminal attributes on .Fx .
p .Dv O_DIRECTORY may be used to ensure the resulting file descriptor refers to a directory. This flag can be used to prevent applications with elevated privileges from opening files which are even unsafe to open with .Dv O_RDONLY , such as device nodes.
p .Dv O_CLOEXEC may be used to set .Dv FD_CLOEXEC flag for the newly returned file descriptor.
p If successful, .Fn open returns a non-negative integer, termed a file descriptor. It returns -1 on failure. The file pointer used to mark the current position within the file is set to the beginning of the file.
p If a sleeping open of a device node from .Xr devfs 5 is interrupted by a signal, the call always fails with .Er EINTR , even if the .Dv SA_RESTART flag is set for the signal. A sleeping open of a fifo (see .Xr mkfifo 2 ) is restarted as normal.
p When a new file is created it is given the group of the directory which contains it.
p Unless .Dv O_CLOEXEC flag was specified, the new descriptor is set to remain open across .Xr execve 2 system calls; see .Xr close 2 , .Xr fcntl 2 and .Dv O_CLOEXEC description.
p The system imposes a limit on the number of file descriptors open simultaneously by one process. The .Xr getdtablesize 2 system call returns the current system limit. .Sh RETURN VALUES If successful, .Fn open and .Fn openat return a non-negative integer, termed a file descriptor. They return -1 on failure, and set .Va errno to indicate the error. .Sh ERRORS The named file is opened unless: l -tag -width Er t Bq Er ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. t Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. t Bq Er ENOENT .Dv O_CREAT is not set and the named file does not exist. t Bq Er ENOENT A component of the path name that must exist does not exist. t Bq Er EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. t Bq Er EACCES The required permissions (for reading and/or writing) are denied for the given flags. t Bq Er EACCES .Dv O_TRUNC is specified and write permission is denied. t Bq Er EACCES .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and the directory in which it is to be created does not permit writing. t Bq Er EPERM .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and the directory in which it is to be created has its immutable flag set, see the .Xr chflags 2 manual page for more information. t Bq Er EPERM The named file has its immutable flag set and the file is to be modified. t Bq Er EPERM The named file has its append-only flag set, the file is to be modified, and .Dv O_TRUNC is specified or .Dv O_APPEND is not specified. t Bq Er ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. t Bq Er EISDIR The named file is a directory, and the arguments specify it is to be modified. t Bq Er EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system, and the file is to be modified. t Bq Er EROFS .Dv O_CREAT is specified and the named file would reside on a read-only file system. t Bq Er EMFILE The process has already reached its limit for open file descriptors. t Bq Er ENFILE The system file table is full. t Bq Er EMLINK .Dv O_NOFOLLOW was specified and the target is a symbolic link. t Bq Er ENXIO The named file is a character special or block special file, and the device associated with this special file does not exist. t Bq Er ENXIO .Dv O_NONBLOCK is set, the named file is a fifo, .Dv O_WRONLY is set, and no process has the file open for reading. t Bq Er EINTR The .Fn open operation was interrupted by a signal. t Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP .Dv O_SHLOCK or .Dv O_EXLOCK is specified but the underlying file system does not support locking. t Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP The named file is a special file mounted through a file system that does not support access to it (e.g. NFS). t Bq Er EWOULDBLOCK .Dv O_NONBLOCK and one of .Dv O_SHLOCK or .Dv O_EXLOCK is specified and the file is locked. t Bq Er ENOSPC .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and the directory in which the entry for the new file is being placed cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing the directory. t Bq Er ENOSPC .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and there are no free inodes on the file system on which the file is being created. t Bq Er EDQUOT .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and the directory in which the entry for the new file is being placed cannot be extended because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted. t Bq Er EDQUOT .Dv O_CREAT is specified, the file does not exist, and the user's quota of inodes on the file system on which the file is being created has been exhausted. t Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry or allocating the inode for .Dv O_CREAT . t Bq Er ETXTBSY The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being executed and the .Fn open system call requests write access. t Bq Er EFAULT The .Fa path argument points outside the process's allocated address space. t Bq Er EEXIST .Dv O_CREAT and .Dv O_EXCL were specified and the file exists. t Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP An attempt was made to open a socket (not currently implemented). t Bq Er EINVAL An attempt was made to open a descriptor with an illegal combination of .Dv O_RDONLY , .Dv O_WRONLY , .Dv O_RDWR and .Dv O_EXEC . t Bq Eq EBADF The .Fa path argument does not specify an absolute path and the .Fa fd argument is neither .Dv AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for searching. t Bq Eq ENOTDIR The .Fa path argument is not an absolute path and .Fa fd is neither .Dv AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated with a directory. t Bq Eq ENOTDIR .Dv O_DIRECTORY is specified and the file is not a directory. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr chmod 2 , .Xr close 2 , .Xr dup 2 , .Xr fexecve 2 , .Xr fhopen 2 , .Xr getdtablesize 2 , .Xr getfh 2 , .Xr lgetfh 2 , .Xr lseek 2 , .Xr read 2 , .Xr umask 2 , .Xr write 2 , .Xr fopen 3 .Sh HISTORY The .Fn open function appeared in .At v6 . The .Fn openat function was introduced in .Fx 8.0 . .Sh BUGS The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification requires that the test for whether .Fa fd is searchable is based on whether .Fa fd is open for searching, not whether the underlying directory currently permits searches. The present implementation of the .Fa openat checks the current permissions of directory instead.