.\" $NetBSD: utimes.2,v 1.13 1999/03/22 19:45:11 garbled Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)utimes.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 .\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/utimes.2,v 1.22.2.1.6.1 2010/12/21 17:09:25 kensmith Exp $ .\" .Dd April 10, 2008 .Dt UTIMES 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm utimes , .Nm lutimes , .Nm futimes , .Nm futimesat .Nd set file access and modification times .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/time.h .Ft int .Fn utimes "const char *path" "const struct timeval *times" .Ft int .Fn lutimes "const char *path" "const struct timeval *times" .Ft int .Fn futimes "int fd" "const struct timeval *times" .Ft int .Fn futimesat "int fd" "const char *path" "const struct timeval times[2]" .Sh DESCRIPTION The access and modification times of the file named by .Fa path or referenced by .Fa fd are changed as specified by the argument .Fa times . .Pp If .Fa times is .Dv NULL , the access and modification times are set to the current time. The caller must be the owner of the file, have permission to write the file, or be the super-user. .Pp If .Fa times is .No non- Ns Dv NULL , it is assumed to point to an array of two timeval structures. The access time is set to the value of the first element, and the modification time is set to the value of the second element. For file systems that support file birth (creation) times (such as .Dv UFS2 ) , the birth time will be set to the value of the second element if the second element is older than the currently set birth time. To set both a birth time and a modification time, two calls are required; the first to set the birth time and the second to set the (presumably newer) modification time. Ideally a new system call will be added that allows the setting of all three times at once. The caller must be the owner of the file or be the super-user. .Pp In either case, the inode-change-time of the file is set to the current time. .Pp The .Fn lutimes system call is like .Fn utimes except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link, in which case .Fn lutimes changes the access and modification times of the link, while .Fn utimes changes the times of the file the link references. .Pp The .Fn futimesat system call is equivalent to .Fn utimes except in the case where .Fa path specifies a relative path. In this case the access and modification time is set to that of a file relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor .Fa fd instead of the current working directory. If .Fn futimesat 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 utimes . .Sh RETURN VALUES .Rv -std .Sh ERRORS The .Fn utimes and .Fn lutimes system calls will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix; or the .Fa times argument is .Dv NULL and the effective user ID of the process does not match the owner of the file, and is not the super-user, and write access is denied. .It Bq Er EFAULT The .Fa path or .Fa times argument points outside the process's allocated address space. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading or writing the affected inode. .It Bq Er ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG A component of a pathname exceeded .Dv NAME_MAX characters, or an entire path name exceeded .Dv PATH_MAX characters. .It Bq Er ENOENT The named file does not exist. .It Bq Er ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. .It Bq Er EPERM The .Fa times argument is not .Dv NULL and the calling process's effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and is not the super-user. .It Bq Er EPERM The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the .Xr chflags 2 manual page for more information. .It Bq Er EROFS The file system containing the file is mounted read-only. .El .Pp The .Fn futimes system call will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBADF The .Fa fd argument does not refer to a valid descriptor. .El .Pp All of the system calls will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EACCES The .Fa times argument is .Dv NULL and the effective user ID of the process does not match the owner of the file, and is not the super-user, and write access is denied. .It Bq Er EFAULT The .Fa times argument points outside the process's allocated address space. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Va tv_usec component of at least one of the values specified by the .Fa times argument has a value less than 0 or greater than 999999. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading or writing the affected inode. .It Bq Er EPERM The .Fa times argument is not .Dv NULL and the calling process's effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and is not the super-user. .It Bq Er EROFS The file system containing the file is mounted read-only. .El .Pp In addition to the errors returned by the .Fn utimes , the .Fn futimesat may fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er 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. .It Bq Er 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. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr chflags 2 , .Xr stat 2 , .Xr utime 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn utimes function is expected to conform to .St -xpg4.2 . The .Fn futimesat system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification. .Sh HISTORY The .Fn utimes system call appeared in .Bx 4.2 . The .Fn futimes and .Fn lutimes system calls first appeared in .Fx 3.0 . The .Fn futimesat system call appeared in .Fx 8.0 .