Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!vsi!friedl
From: friedl@vsi.UUCP (Stephen J. Friedl)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: [braindamaged?] use of access(2)
Message-ID: <513@vsi.UUCP>
Date: 9 Apr 88 03:26:28 GMT
References: <59@vsi.UUCP> <1056@stratus.UUCP> <70@vsi.UUCP> <305@wsccs.UUCP> <7591@ncoast.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: V-Systems, Inc. -- Santa Ana, CA
Lines: 17

In article <7591@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
< As quoted from <368@wsccs.UUCP> by terry@wsccs.UUCP (terry):
< | I write:
< | > The difficulty is because the shell probably uses access(2) to see if
< | > /usr/acct/bin/report is executable
< | 
< | It does.  Isn't that what it's supposed to do?
< 
< sh uses access()?  Since the real and effective u/gids are not
< affected by an exec(), access() is the *wrong* function to use.

SVR2 and SVR3 shells do indeed use access(2) incorrectly. MORAL:
If you just want to know if a file exists, please use stat(),
not access(2).
-- 
Steve Friedl   V-Systems, Inc.   "Yes, I'm jeff@unh's brother"
friedl@vsi.com  {backbones}!vsi.com!friedl  attmail!vsi!friedl