SETMODE(3)                OpenBSD Programmer's Manual               SETMODE(3)

NAME
     getmode, setmode - modify mode bits



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 al-
     tered, 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, setmode() returns NULL. The
     caller is responsible for freeing the pointer that setmode() returns.

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.

OpenBSD 2.6                      June 9, 1993                                1