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ACCESS(2)                   BSD System Calls Manual                  ACCESS(2)

NAME
     access -- check access permissions of a file or pathname

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

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

DESCRIPTION
     The access() function checks the accessibility of the file named by path for the access permissions
     indicated by amode.  The value of amode is the bitwise inclusive OR of the access permissions to be
     checked (R_OK for read permission, W_OK for write permission and X_OK for execute/search permission) or
     the existence test, F_OK.  All components of the pathname path are checked for access permissions
     (including F_OK).

     The real user ID is used in place of the effective user ID and the real group access list (including
     the real group ID) are used in place of the effective ID for verifying permission.

     Even if a process has appropriate privileges and indicates success for X_OK, the file may not actually
     have execute permission bits set.  Likewise for R_OK and W_OK.

RETURN VALUES
     If path cannot be found or if any of the desired access modes would not be granted, then a -1 value is
     returned and the global integer variable errno is set to indicate the error.  Otherwise, a 0 value is
     returned.

ERRORS
     Access to the file is denied if:

     [EACCES]           Permission bits of the file mode do not permit the requested access, or search per-mission permission
                        mission is denied on a component of the path prefix.

                        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
                        permission checked with respect to the ``group'' mode bits, and all others have per-missions permissions
                        missions checked with respect to the ``other'' mode bits.

     [EFAULT]           Path points outside the process's allocated address space.

     [EINVAL]           An invalid value was specified for amode.

     [EIO]              An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

     [ELOOP]            Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]     A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name
                        exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.

     [ENOENT]           The named file does not exist.

     [ENOTDIR]          A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

     [EROFS]            Write access is requested for a file on a read-only file system.

     [ETXTBSY]          Write access is requested for a pure procedure (shared text) file that is presently
                        being executed.

SEE ALSO
     chmod(2), stat(2)

STANDARDS
     The access() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (``POSIX.1'').

CAVEAT
     Access() is a potential security hole and should never be used.

4th Berkeley Distribution        April 1, 1994       4th Berkeley Distribution