.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)setmode.3 8.2 (Berkeley) 4/28/95 .\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/gen/setmode.3,v 1.8.2.3 2001/12/14 18:33:51 ru Exp $ .\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/gen/setmode.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:42 dillon Exp $ .\" .Dd April 28, 1995 .Dt SETMODE 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm getmode , .Nm setmode .Nd modify mode bits .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In unistd.h .Ft mode_t .Fn getmode "const void *set" "mode_t mode" .Ft void * .Fn setmode "const char *mode_str" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn getmode function returns a copy of the file permission bits .Fa mode as altered by the values pointed to by .Fa set . While only the mode bits are altered, other parts of the file mode may be examined. .Pp The .Fn setmode function takes an absolute (octal) or symbolic value, as described in .Xr chmod 1 , as an argument and returns a pointer to mode values to be supplied to .Fn getmode . Because some of the symbolic values are relative to the file creation mask, .Fn setmode may call .Xr umask 2 . If this occurs, the file creation mask will be restored before .Fn setmode returns. If the calling program changes the value of its file creation mask after calling .Fn setmode , .Fn setmode must be called again if .Fn getmode is to modify future file modes correctly. .Pp If the mode passed to .Fn setmode is invalid or if memory cannot be allocated for the return value, .Fn setmode returns .Dv NULL . .Pp The value returned from .Fn setmode is obtained from .Fn malloc and should be returned to the system with .Fn free when the program is done with it, generally after a call to .Fn getmode . .Sh ERRORS The .Fn setmode function may fail and set errno for any of the errors specified for the library routine .Xr malloc 3 . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr chmod 1 , .Xr stat 2 , .Xr umask 2 , .Xr malloc 3 .Sh HISTORY The .Fn getmode and .Fn setmode functions first appeared in .Bx 4.4 .