CHFLAGS(2)

NAME
chflags, fchflags - set file flags

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/stat.h>
int
chflags(path, flags)
char *path;
u_short flags;
int
fchflags(fd, flags)
int fd;
u_short flags;

DESCRIPTION
The file whose name is given by path or referenced by the descriptor fd has its flags changed to flags .

The flags specified are formed by or'ing the following values

UF_NODUMP
    Do not dump the file.

UF_IMMUTABLE
    The file may not be changed.

UF_APPEND
    The file may only be appended to.

ARCHIVED
    File is archived.

SF_IMMUTABLE
    The file may not be changed.

SF_APPEND
    The file may only be appended to.

The UF_IMMUTABLE and UF_APPEND flags may be set or unset by either the owner of a file or the super-user.

The SF_IMMUTABLE and SF_APPEND flags may only be set or unset by the super-user. They may be set at any time, but normally may only be unset when the system is in single-user mode. (See init(8) for details.)

RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
Chflags will fail if:

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

EINVAL
    The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.

ENAMETOOLONG
    A component of a pathname exceeded 63 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 255 characters.

ENOENT
    The named file does not exist.

EACCES
    Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.

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

EPERM
    The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the effective user ID is not the super-user.

EROFS
    The named file resides on a read-only file system.

EFAULT
    path points outside the process's allocated address space.

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

fchflags will fail if:

EBADF
    The descriptor is not valid.

EINVAL
    fd refers to a socket, not to a file.

EPERM
    The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the effective user ID is not the super-user.

EROFS
    The file resides on a read-only file system.

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

SEE ALSO
chflags(1), init(8)

HISTORY
The chflags and fchflags functions first appeared in 4.4BSD.