setmode(3)

NAME

getmode, setmode - modify mode bits

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>
mode_t
getmode(const void *set, mode_t mode);
void *
setmode(const char *mode_str);

DESCRIPTION

The getmode() function returns a copy of the file permission

bits mode as
altered by the values pointed to by set. While only the

mode bits are
altered, other parts of the file mode may be examined.

The setmode() function takes an absolute (octal) or symbolic

value, as
described in chmod(1), as an argument and returns a pointer

to mode values to be supplied to getmode(). Because some of the sym

bolic values are
relative to the file creation mask, setmode() may call

umask(2). If this
occurs, the file creation mask will be restored before

setmode() returns.
If the calling program changes the value of its file cre

ation mask after
calling setmode(), setmode() must be called again if

getmode() is to modify future file modes correctly.

If the mode passed to setmode() is invalid or if memory can

not be allocated for the return value, setmode() returns NULL.

The value returned from setmode() is obtained from malloc()

and should be
returned to the system with free() when the program is done

with it, generally after a call to getmode().

ERRORS

The setmode() function may fail and set errno for any of the

errors specified for the library routine malloc(3).

SEE ALSO

chmod(1), stat(2), umask(2), malloc(3)

HISTORY

The getmode() and setmode() functions first appeared in

4.4BSD.

BSD April 28, 1995

BSD