setmode(3) BSD Library Functions Manual 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 val-
ues to be supplied to getmode(). Because some of the symbolic 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 creation mask after
calling setmode(), setmode() must be called again if getmode() is to mod-
ify future file modes correctly.
If the mode passed to setmode() is invalid or if memory cannot be allo-
cated 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, gen-
erally after a call to getmode().
ERRORS
The setmode() function may fail and set errno for any of the errors spec-
ified 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
Mac OS X 10.8 - Generated Fri Aug 31 05:18:28 CDT 2012