c - O_TRUNC and O_APPEND for system call open() - c

The access mode bits O_TRUNC and O_APPEND are for system call open()'s 2nd parameter.
They shouldn't be used together, I guess, because they conflict, or 1 will override another, I think.
But I saw following in <The linux programming interface> page 73, is that a bad way?
d = open("w.log", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_APPEND,S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);

Related

Why are the open system call mode values different for equivalent code?

Below code and the quoted statement are from Linux System Programming by Robert Love.
I don't understand how are the modes in the first and the second code examples the same.
From the first example, I calculated the mode values as
USR -> 2+1 = 3
GRP -> 2+1 = 3
OTH -> 1 = 1
So my expectation was 0331, but it the book says it's 0664.
What's wrong in my logic?
Copied from the book below:
int fd;
fd = open (file, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, S_IWUSR | S_IRUSR | S_IWGRP | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH);
if(fd == -1)
/* error */
Trading portability (in theory at least) for readability, we could
have written the following, to identical effect:
int fd;
fd = open(file, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0664);
if(fd == -1)
/*error*/
For whichever reason, you have chosen to use the wrong values for the constants.
Instead of S_IRUSR being 0400, you decided it was 0200.
Instead of S_IWUSR being 0200, you decided it was 0100.
etc
If you use the correct values for the constants, you will get the same result.

C statement to ask for system password when opening a file in ubuntu

if I have a client descriptor as follows:
int fileDescriptor = open("myfile.txt", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_APPEND, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
how can I edit this statement so that, if I want to open it (double click) I will be asked for the system password?

linux syscall open() bitmask

I want to know which purpose has the following line of code in Linux syscall int open(const char *pathname, int flags):
if (flags & ~(O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_RDWR | O_TRUNC | O_APPEND))
{
return -1;
}
This line checks that your file have only these properties available :
O_RDONLY : read-only file
O_WRONLY : write-only file
O_CREAT : create the file if it does not exist
O_RDWR : read-write file
O_TRUNC : If the file already exists and is a regular file and the access
mode allows writing (i.e., is O_RDWR or O_WRONLY) it will be
truncated to length 0.
O_APPEND : the file is opened in append mode
Without knowing the actual values of that O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR are assigned, it's not really possible to determine what that code actually does.
The code
if (flags & ~(O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_RDWR | O_TRUNC | O_APPEND))
{
return -1;
}
is non-portable and strictly speaking invalid outside of the actual system implementation that has access to and control of the actual values of the flags. Per POSIX, the flags O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR are NOT bit flags:
Values for oflag are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following list, defined in . Applications shall specify exactly one of the first five values (file access modes) below in the value of oflag:
O_EXEC
Open for execute only (non-directory files). The result is unspecified if this flag is applied to a directory.
O_RDONLY
Open for reading only.
O_RDWR
Open for reading and writing. The result is undefined if this flag is applied to a FIFO.
O_SEARCH
Open directory for search only. The result is unspecified if this flag is applied to a non-directory file.
O_WRONLY
Open for writing only.
Since those flags are not bit-based but actual value-based, their presence or absence can not be detected via bitwise operations without knowledge of their actual values on the system in use.
This code uses more than one of those flags, violating the POSIX specification:
O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_RDWR | O_TRUNC | O_APPEND
It can in theory produce a nonsensical bit value that can not be used in a valid bitwise comparison to anything.
The RATIONALE section of the open() POSIX documentation even addresses the non-bit flag-based nature of the open() flags:
RATIONALE
In historical implementations the value of O_RDONLY is zero. Because of that, it is not possible to detect the presence of O_RDONLY and another option. Future implementations should encode O_RDONLY and O_WRONLY as bit flags so that:
O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY == O_RDWR
That comment only makes sense if O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY and O_RDWR are not bit-based flags.

Clear file before writing with open()

With fopen, by setting it to w will automatically clear the file for me. However now I'm trying to do the same thing with open,
int file = open(filename, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
This won't guarantee that the file is empty and write at the beginning(?). How can I achieve that?
Add O_TRUNC - Initially clear all data from the file.
O_TRUNC flag truncates the file when opening. It can be used.
int file = open(filename, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);

how to open or create .out file with permissions in C

I have problem I want to open a file with .out extension or if it not exist then it should create it with permissions to read and write and by opening file I want to erase his content
variable = open( "file.out", O_RDWR | O_CREAT, S_IRWXO, O_TRUNC )
I used this command but it always fails I think I have bad flags as far I know:
O_RDWR is to open file with write and read permission
O_CREAT it creates file if not exist
S_IRWXO is used by O_CREAT to make the file readable and writable
O_TRUNC erase all data from file
open doesn't take 4 arguments - only 2 or 3. All of the O_ flags should be OR'ed together in the second argument. Also, S_IRWXO will give permissions only to others, not to the owner or group owner. You meant S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO probably. But I'd rather just see an octal number; the macros aren't more readable.
variable = open( "file.out", O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0777 )
If you want read/write/execute permission for the current user/owner use: S_IRWXU:
S_IRWXO
Read, write, and search or execute permission for users other than the
file owner. S_IRWXO is the bitwise inclusive-OR of S_IROTH, S_IWOTH,
and S_IXOTH.
S_IRWXU
Read, write, and search, or execute, for the file owner; S_IRWXG is the
bitwise inclusive-OR of S_IRUSR, S_IWUSR, and S_IXUSR.
Doing open( "file.out", O_RDWR | O_CREAT, S_IRWXU, O_TRUNC ); and ls -l gives:
-rwx------. 1 perreal perreal 0 Apr 29 15:52 file.out

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