ACCESS

Section: MINTLIB LIBRARY FUNCTIONS (3)
Updated: 3 March 1993
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NAME

access - determine accessibility of a file

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int access(const char *path, int amode);

DESCRIPTION

path points to a path naming a file. access checks the named file for accessibility, using the real user ID and real group ID of the process. The bit pattern contained in amode is constructed as follows:

  04: read
  02: write
  01: execute (search for directories)
  00: check existence of file The owner of a file has permission checked with respect to the "owner" read, write and execute mode bits. Members of the file's group other than the owner have permissions checked with respect to the "group" mode bits, and all others have permissions checked with respect to the "other" mode bits. If the real user ID is 0 (super-user), success is always returned for any existing file.

RETURN VALUES

0 if access is permitted. -1 if access is not permitted or if the file does not exist;
errno is set to indicate the error.

NOTE

Under TOS or on a MS-DOS (TOS) file-system, this call is pretty bogus and can best be used to check for existence of the file.

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