WALK(5) File Formats Manual WALK(5)NAME
walk - descend a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
Twalk tag[2] fid[2] name[28]
Rwalk tag[2] fid[2] qid[8]
DESCRIPTION
The walk request looks for the file name in the directory represented by fid.
For the walk to succeed, the file identified by fid must be a directory, and the implied user of the request must have permission to search
the directory (see intro(5)).
After a successful walk, fid represents the specified file. The qid for the new file is returned with the walk reply message.
A walk of the name .. in the root directory of a server is a no-op.
ENTRY POINTS
A call to chdir(2) causes a walk. One or more walk messages may be generated by any of the following calls, which evaluate file names:
bind, create, exec, mount, open, remove, stat, unmount, wstat. The file name element . (dot) is interpreted locally and is not transmit-
ted in walk messages.
WALK(5)
Check Out this Related Man Page
OPEN(5) File Formats Manual 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 permissions 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 file is append-only, and permission is granted, the open succeeds but the file will not be truncated); 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
directory. 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 direc-
tory 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 file is returned with the create reply message.
Directories are created by setting the CHDIR bit (0x80000000) in the perm.
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, the create system call (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.
OPEN(5)