LCHOWN(3P)						     POSIX Programmer's Manual							LCHOWN(3P)

PROLOG

       This  manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
       ing Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       lchown - change the owner and group of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int lchown(const char *path, uid_t owner, gid_t group);

DESCRIPTION

       The lchown() function shall be equivalent to chown(), except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link. In  this  case,  lchown()
       shall change the ownership of the symbolic link file itself, while chown() changes the ownership of the file or directory to which the sym-
       bolic link refers.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, lchown() shall return 0. Otherwise, it shall return -1 and set errno to indicate an error.

ERRORS

       The lchown() function shall fail if:

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

       EINVAL The owner or group ID is not a value supported by the implementation.

       ELOOP  A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      The length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX} or a pathname component is longer than {NAME_MAX}.

       ENOENT A component of path does not name an existing file or path is an empty string.

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

       EOPNOTSUPP
	      The path argument names a symbolic link and the implementation does not support setting the owner or group of a symbolic link.

       EPERM  The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the process does not have appropriate privileges.

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

       The lchown() function may fail if:

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

       EINTR  A signal was caught during execution of the function.

       ELOOP  More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during resolution of the path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      Pathname resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result whose length exceeds {PATH_MAX}.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

   Changing the Current Owner of a File
       The following example shows how to change the ownership of the symbolic link named /modules/pass1 to the user ID  associated  with  "jones"
       and the group ID associated with "cnd".

       The  numeric  value  for the user ID is obtained by using the getpwnam() function.  The numeric value for the group ID is obtained by using
       the getgrnam() function.

	      #include <sys/types.h>
	      #include <unistd.h>
	      #include <pwd.h>
	      #include <grp.h>

	      struct passwd *pwd;
	      struct group  *grp;
	      char	    *path = "/modules/pass1";
	      ...
	      pwd = getpwnam("jones");
	      grp = getgrnam("cnd");
	      lchown(path, pwd->pw_uid, grp->gr_gid);

APPLICATION USAGE

       On implementations which support symbolic links as directory entries rather than files, lchown() may fail.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       chown(), symlink(), the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <unistd.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and  the  original  IEEE
       and  The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained
       online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE
/The Open Group						       2003								LCHOWN(3P)