Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:15375 comp.databases:2263
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mtxinu!ed
From: ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.databases
Subject: Re: getcwd() and friends.
Message-ID: <811@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 89 23:59:10 GMT
References: <3675@ficc.uu.net> <14689@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 20


 >>One thing that really would make things a lot easier would be a fchdir()
 >>call, that took a file descriptor and tried to chdir to it.

 >However ... all of the information needed for a chdir() is not present
 >in the file descriptor.  It is possible to be handed a file descriptor
 >which you would not be able to have opened because some component of
 >the search path denies access now, but at some point in the past did
 >allow access.

Worse than that, the permission required to open a directory is "r"
(since one may not open a directory for writing), whereas the
permission required to change to one is "x".  Hence, Unix protection
would be completely violated by the existance of fchdir().

-- 
Ed Gould                    mt Xinu, 2560 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
ed@mtxinu.COM		    +1 415 644 0146

"I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady.  I'll fight them as an engineer."