xref: /freebsd/lib/libsys/utimes.2 (revision 8aac90f18aef7c9eea906c3ff9a001ca7b94f375)
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30.Dd March 30, 2020
31.Dt UTIMES 2
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm utimes ,
35.Nm lutimes ,
36.Nm futimes ,
37.Nm futimesat
38.Nd set file access and modification times
39.Sh LIBRARY
40.Lb libc
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In sys/time.h
43.Ft int
44.Fn utimes "const char *path" "const struct timeval *times"
45.Ft int
46.Fn lutimes "const char *path" "const struct timeval *times"
47.Ft int
48.Fn futimes "int fd" "const struct timeval *times"
49.Ft int
50.Fn futimesat "int fd" "const char *path" "const struct timeval times[2]"
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52.Bf -symbolic
53These interfaces are obsoleted by
54.Xr futimens 2
55and
56.Xr utimensat 2
57because they are not accurate to nanoseconds.
58.Ef
59.Pp
60The access and modification times of the file named by
61.Fa path
62or referenced by
63.Fa fd
64are changed as specified by the argument
65.Fa times .
66.Pp
67If
68.Fa times
69is
70.Dv NULL ,
71the access and modification times are set to the current time.
72The caller must be the owner of the file, have permission to
73write the file, or be the super-user.
74.Pp
75If
76.Fa times
77is
78.No non- Ns Dv NULL ,
79it is assumed to point to an array of two timeval structures.
80The access time is set to the value of the first element, and the
81modification time is set to the value of the second element.
82For file systems that support file birth (creation) times (such as
83.Dv UFS2 ) ,
84the birth time will be set to the value of the second element
85if the second element is older than the currently set birth time.
86To set both a birth time and a modification time,
87two calls are required; the first to set the birth time
88and the second to set the (presumably newer) modification time.
89Ideally a new system call will be added that allows the setting
90of all three times at once.
91The caller must be the owner of the file or be the super-user.
92.Pp
93In either case, the inode-change-time of the file is set to the current
94time.
95.Pp
96The
97.Fn lutimes
98system call
99is like
100.Fn utimes
101except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link,
102in which case
103.Fn lutimes
104changes the access and modification times of the link,
105while
106.Fn utimes
107changes the times of the file the link references.
108.Pp
109The
110.Fn futimesat
111system call is equivalent to
112.Fn utimes
113except in the case where
114.Fa path
115specifies a relative path.
116In this case the access and modification time
117is set to that of a file relative to the directory associated with the file
118descriptor
119.Fa fd
120instead of the current working directory.
121If
122.Fn futimesat
123is passed the special value
124.Dv AT_FDCWD
125in the
126.Fa fd
127parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior
128is identical to a call to
129.Fn utimes .
130.Sh RETURN VALUES
131.Rv -std
132.Sh ERRORS
133All of the system call will fail if:
134.Bl -tag -width Er
135.It Bq Er EACCES
136Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
137.It Bq Er EACCES
138The
139.Fa times
140argument is
141.Dv NULL
142and the effective user ID of the process does not
143match the owner of the file, and is not the super-user, and write
144access is denied.
145.It Bq Er EFAULT
146The
147.Fa path
148or
149.Fa times
150argument
151points outside the process's allocated address space.
152.It Bq Er EFAULT
153The
154.Fa times
155argument
156points outside the process's allocated address space.
157.It Bq Er EINVAL
158The
159.Va tv_usec
160component of at least one of the values specified by the
161.Fa times
162argument has a value less than 0 or greater than 999999.
163.It Bq Er EIO
164An I/O error occurred while reading or writing the affected inode.
165.It Bq Er EINTEGRITY
166Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
167.It Bq Er ELOOP
168Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
169.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
170A component of a pathname exceeded
171.Dv NAME_MAX
172characters, or an entire path name exceeded
173.Dv PATH_MAX
174characters.
175.It Bq Er ENOENT
176The named file does not exist.
177.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
178A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
179.It Bq Er EPERM
180The
181.Fa times
182argument is not
183.Dv NULL
184and the calling process's effective user ID
185does not match the owner of the file and is not the super-user.
186.It Bq Er EPERM
187The named file has its immutable or append-only flags set.
188See the
189.Xr chflags 2
190manual page for more information.
191.It Bq Er EROFS
192The file system containing the file is mounted read-only.
193.El
194.Pp
195The
196.Fn futimes
197system call
198will fail if:
199.Bl -tag -width Er
200.It Bq Er EBADF
201The
202.Fa fd
203argument
204does not refer to a valid descriptor.
205.El
206.Pp
207In addition to the errors returned by the
208.Fn utimes ,
209the
210.Fn futimesat
211may fail if:
212.Bl -tag -width Er
213.It Bq Er EBADF
214The
215.Fa path
216argument does not specify an absolute path and the
217.Fa fd
218argument is neither
219.Dv AT_FDCWD
220nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
221.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
222The
223.Fa path
224argument is not an absolute path and
225.Fa fd
226is neither
227.Dv AT_FDCWD
228nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
229.El
230.Sh SEE ALSO
231.Xr chflags 2 ,
232.Xr stat 2 ,
233.Xr utimensat 2 ,
234.Xr utime 3
235.Sh STANDARDS
236The
237.Fn utimes
238function is expected to conform to
239.St -xpg4.2 .
240The
241.Fn futimesat
242system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification
243but was replaced by
244.Fn utimensat
245in
246.St -p1003.1-2008 .
247.Sh HISTORY
248The
249.Fn utimes
250system call appeared in
251.Bx 4.2 .
252The
253.Fn futimes
254and
255.Fn lutimes
256system calls first appeared in
257.Fx 3.0 .
258The
259.Fn futimesat
260system call appeared in
261.Fx 8.0 .
262