table of contents
OPEN(2) | System Calls Manual | OPEN(2) |
NAME¶
open
, openat
—
LIBRARY¶
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)SYNOPSIS¶
#include <fcntl.h>
int
open
(const
char *path, int
flags, ...);
int
openat
(int
fd, const char
*path, int flags,
...);
DESCRIPTION¶
The file name specified by path is opened for either execution or reading and/or writing as specified by the argument flags and the file descriptor returned to the calling process. The flags argument may indicate the file is to be created if it does not exist (by specifying theO_CREAT
flag). In this case
open
() and openat
() require an
additional argument mode_t mode, and the file is created
with mode mode as described in
chmod(2) and modified by the process' umask value (see
umask(2)).
The openat
() function is equivalent to the
open
() function except in the case where the
path specifies a relative path. In this case the file
to be opened is determined relative to the directory associated with the
file descriptor fd instead of the current working
directory. The flag parameter and the optional fourth
parameter correspond exactly to the parameters of
open
(). If openat
() is
passed the special value AT_FDCWD
in the
fd parameter, the current working directory is used
and the behavior is identical to a call to
open
().
The flags specified are formed by or'ing the following values
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
Opening a file with O_APPEND
set causes
each write on the file to be appended to the end. If
O_TRUNC
is specified and the file exists, the file
is truncated to zero length. If O_EXCL
is set with
O_CREAT
and the file already exists,
open
() returns an error. This may be used to
implement a simple exclusive access locking mechanism. If
O_EXCL
is set and the last component of the pathname
is a symbolic link, open
() will fail even if the
symbolic link points to a non-existent name. If the
O_NONBLOCK
flag is specified and the
open
() system call would result in the process being
blocked for some reason (e.g., waiting for carrier on a dialup line),
open
() returns immediately. The descriptor remains
in non-blocking mode for subsequent operations.
If 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.
O_SYNC
is a synonym for
O_FSYNC
required by POSIX.
If O_NOFOLLOW
is used in the mask and the
target file passed to open
() is a symbolic link then
the open
() will fail.
When opening a file, a lock with flock(2)
semantics can be obtained by setting O_SHLOCK
for a
shared lock, or O_EXLOCK
for an exclusive lock. If
creating a file with O_CREAT
, the request for the
lock will never fail (provided that the underlying file system supports
locking).
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.
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 FreeBSD, but is present for
POSIX compatibility. The open
() system call will not
assign controlling terminals on FreeBSD.
O_TTY_INIT
may be used to ensure the OS
restores the terminal attributes when initially opening a TTY. This is the
default on FreeBSD, but is present for POSIX
compatibility. The initial call to open
() on a TTY
will always restore default terminal attributes on
FreeBSD.
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 O_RDONLY
, such as device
nodes.
O_CLOEXEC
may be used to set
FD_CLOEXEC
flag for the newly returned file
descriptor.
If successful, 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.
If a sleeping open of a device node from
devfs(5) is interrupted by a signal, the call always fails
with EINTR
, even if the
SA_RESTART
flag is set for the signal. A sleeping
open of a fifo (see mkfifo(2)) is restarted as normal.
When a new file is created it is given the group of the directory which contains it.
Unless O_CLOEXEC
flag was specified, the
new descriptor is set to remain open across execve(2)
system calls; see close(2), fcntl(2) and
O_CLOEXEC
description.
The system imposes a limit on the number of file descriptors open simultaneously by one process. The getdtablesize(2) system call returns the current system limit.
RETURN VALUES¶
If successful,open
() and
openat
() return a non-negative integer, termed a file
descriptor. They return -1 on failure, and set errno to
indicate the error.
ERRORS¶
The named file is opened unless:- [
ENOTDIR
] - A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
- [
ENAMETOOLONG
] - A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
- [
ENOENT
] O_CREAT
is not set and the named file does not exist.- [
ENOENT
] - A component of the path name that must exist does not exist.
- [
EACCES
] - Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
- [
EACCES
] - The required permissions (for reading and/or writing) are denied for the given flags.
- [
EACCES
] O_TRUNC
is specified and write permission is denied.- [
EACCES
] O_CREAT
is specified, the file does not exist, and the directory in which it is to be created does not permit writing.- [
EPERM
] 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 chflags(2) manual page for more information.- [
EPERM
] - The named file has its immutable flag set and the file is to be modified.
- [
EPERM
] - The named file has its append-only flag set, the file is to be modified,
and
O_TRUNC
is specified orO_APPEND
is not specified. - [
ELOOP
] - Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
- [
EISDIR
] - The named file is a directory, and the arguments specify it is to be modified.
- [
EROFS
] - The named file resides on a read-only file system, and the file is to be modified.
- [
EROFS
] O_CREAT
is specified and the named file would reside on a read-only file system.- [
EMFILE
] - The process has already reached its limit for open file descriptors.
- [
ENFILE
] - The system file table is full.
- [
EMLINK
] O_NOFOLLOW
was specified and the target is a symbolic link.- [
ENXIO
] - The named file is a character special or block special file, and the device associated with this special file does not exist.
- [
ENXIO
] O_NONBLOCK
is set, the named file is a fifo,O_WRONLY
is set, and no process has the file open for reading.- [
EINTR
] - The
open
() operation was interrupted by a signal. - [
EOPNOTSUPP
] O_SHLOCK
orO_EXLOCK
is specified but the underlying file system does not support locking.- [
EOPNOTSUPP
] - The named file is a special file mounted through a file system that does not support access to it (e.g. NFS).
- [
EWOULDBLOCK
] O_NONBLOCK
and one ofO_SHLOCK
orO_EXLOCK
is specified and the file is locked.- [
ENOSPC
] 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.- [
ENOSPC
] 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.- [
EDQUOT
] 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.- [
EDQUOT
] 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.- [
EIO
] - An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry or allocating the
inode for
O_CREAT
. - [
ETXTBSY
] - The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being executed and
the
open
() system call requests write access. - [
EFAULT
] - The path argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
- [
EEXIST
] O_CREAT
andO_EXCL
were specified and the file exists.- [
EOPNOTSUPP
] - An attempt was made to open a socket (not currently implemented).
- [
EINVAL
] - An attempt was made to open a descriptor with an illegal combination of
O_RDONLY
,O_WRONLY
,O_RDWR
andO_EXEC
. - [
EBADF
] - The path argument does not specify an absolute path
and the fd argument is neither
AT_FDCWD
nor a valid file descriptor open for searching. - [
ENOTDIR
] - The path argument is not an absolute path and
fd is neither
AT_FDCWD
nor a file descriptor associated with a directory. - [
ENOTDIR
] O_DIRECTORY
is specified and the file is not a directory.
SEE ALSO¶
chmod(2), close(2), dup(2), fexecve(2), fhopen(2), getdtablesize(2), getfh(2), lgetfh(2), lseek(2), read(2), umask(2), write(2), fopen(3)HISTORY¶
Theopen
() function appeared in
Version 6 AT&T UNIX. The
openat
() function was introduced in
FreeBSD 8.0.
BUGS¶
The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification requires that the test for whether fd is searchable is based on whether fd is open for searching, not whether the underlying directory currently permits searches. The present implementation of the openat checks the current permissions of directory instead.April 2, 2015 | Linux 4.9.0-9-amd64 |