OPEN(5) OPEN(5) NAME open, create - prepare a fid for I/O on an existing or new file SYNOPSIS Topen tag[2] fid[2] mode[1] Ropen tag[2] fid[2] qid[8] Tcreate tag[2] fid[2] name[28] perm[4] mode[1] Rcreate tag[2] fid[2] qid[8] DESCRIPTION The open request asks the file server to check permissions and prepare a fid for I/O with subsequent read and write messages. The mode field determines the type of I/O: 0, 1, 2, and 3 mean read access, write access, read and write access, and execute access, to be checked against the per- missions for the file. In addition, if mode has the OTRUNC (0x10) bit set, the file is to be truncated, which requires write permission; if the mode has the ORCLOSE (0x40) bit set, the file is to be removed when the fid is clunked, which requires permission to remove the file from its direc- tory. If other bits are set in mode they will be ignored. It is illegal to write a directory, truncate it, or attempt to remove it on close. If the file is marked for exclusive use (see stat(5)), only one client can have the file open at any time. That is, after such a file has been opened, no other open will succeed until fid has been clunked. All these permissions are checked at the time of the open request; subsequent changes to the permissions of files do not affect the ability to read, write, or remove an open file. The create request asks the file server to create a new file with the name supplied, in the directory (dir) represented by fid, and requires write permission in the directory. The owner of the file is the implied user id of the request, the group of the file is the same as dir, and the permissions are the value of (perm&(~0777|0111)) | (dir.perm&perm&0666) if a regular file is being created and (perm&~0777) | (dir.perm&perm&0777) if a directory is being created. This means, for example, that if the create allows read permission to others, but the containing directory does not, then the created file will not allow others to read the file. Finally, the newly created file is opened according to mode, and fid will represent the newly opened file. Mode is not checked against the permissions in perm. The qid for the new Page 1 Plan 9 (printed 12/5/24) OPEN(5) OPEN(5) file is returned with the create response. Directories are created by setting the CHDIR bit (0x80000000) in the mode. The names . and .. are special; it is illegal to create files with these names. It is an error for either of these messages if the fid is already the product of a successful open or create message. An attempt to create a file in a directory where the given name already exists will be rejected; in this case, create (see open(2)) uses open with truncation. The algorithm used by create is: first walk to the directory to contain the file. If that fails, return an error. Next walk to the specified file. If the walk succeeds, send a request to open and truncate the file and return the result, successful or not. If the walk fails, send a create message. If that fails, it may be because the file was created by another process after the previous walk failed, so (once) try the walk and open again. For the behavior of create on a union directory, see bind(2). ENTRY POINTS Open and create both generate open messages; only create generates a create message. Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 12/5/24)