APSCE UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING

MODULE 2: UNIX FILES AND API’S

Files are the building blocks of any operating system. When you execute a command in UNIX, the UNIX kernel fetches the
corresponding executable file from a file system, loads its instruction text to memory, and creates a process to execute the
command on your behalf. In the course of execution, a process may read from or write to files. All these operations involve files.
Thus, the design of an operating system always begins with an efficient file management system.

File Types
A file in a UNIX or POSIX system may be one of the following types:

 regular file

 directory file

 FIFO file

 Character device file

Block device file


 Regular file

 A regular file may be either a text file or a binary file

 These files may be read or written to by users with the appropriate access permission 

Regular files may be created, browsed through and modified by various means such as text editors or compilers,
 and they can be removed by specific system commands 

 Directory file

 It is like a folder that contains other files, including sub-directory files.

It provides a means for users to organise their files into some hierarchical structure based on file relationship or
 uses.

 Ex: /bin directory contains all system executable programs, such as cat, rm, sort

A directory may be created in UNIX by the mkdir command
o Ex: mkdir /usr/foo/xyz

 A directory may be removed via the rmdir command
o Ex: rmdir /usr/foo/xyz

 The content of directory may be displayed by the ls command

Device file
Block device file Character device file
It represents a physical device that transmits data a It represents a physical device that transmits data in a
block at a time. character-based manner.
Ex: hard disk drives and floppy disk drives Ex: line printers, modems, and consoles



A physical device may have both block and character device files representing it for different access methods. 

An application program may perform read and write operations on a device file and the OS will automatically
invoke an appropriate device driver function to perform the actual data transfer between the physical device and
 the application

An application program in turn may choose to transfer data by either a character-based(via character device file) or
 block-based(via block device file)

A device file is created in UNIX via the mknod command
o Ex: mknod /dev/cdsk c 115 5

Here , c - character device file

115 - major device number
5 - minor device number

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
o For block device file, use argument ‘b’ instead of ‘c’.

Major device number  an index to a kernel table that contains the addresses of all device driver functions known
to the system. Whenever a process reads data from or writes data to a device file, the kernel uses the device file’s
 major number to select and invoke a device driver function to carry out actual data transfer with a physical device. 

Minor device number  an integer value to be passed as an argument to a device driver function when it is called.
It tells the device driver function what actual physical device is talking to and the I/O buffering scheme to be used
 for data transfer.

 FIFO file

It is a special pipe device file which provides a temporary buffer for two or more processes to communicate by
 writing data to and reading data from the buffer. 

 The size of the buffer is fixed to PIPE_BUF.

 Data in the buffer is accessed in a first-in-first-out manner.

 The buffer is allocated when the first process opens the FIFO file for read or write 

 The buffer is discarded when all processes close their references (stream pointers) to the FIFO file.

 Data stored in a FIFO buffer is temporary.

 A FIFO file may be created via the mkfifo command.
o The following command creates a FIFO file (if it does not exists)
mkfifo /usr/prog/fifo_pipe
o The following command creates a FIFO file (if it does not exists)
mknod /usr/prog/fifo_pipe p

FIFO files can be removed using rm command.


 Symbolic link file

 BSD UNIX & SV4 defines a symbolic link file.

 A symbolic link file contains a path name which references another file in either local or a remote file system.

 POSIX.1 does not support symbolic link file type 

A symbolic link may be created in UNIX via the ln command

Ex: ln -s /usr/divya/original /usr/raj/slink

 It is possible to create a symbolic link to reference another symbolic link.

rm, mv and chmod commands will operate only on the symbolic link arguments directly and not on the files that
they reference.

The UNIX and POSIX File Systems

 Files in UNIX or POSIX systems are stored in tree-like hierarchical file system.
  The root of a file system is the root (“/”) directory.
 The leaf nodes of a file system tree are either empty directory files or other types of files.
 Absolute path name of a file consists of the names of all the directories, starting from the root.
 Ex:/usr/divya/a.out

 Relative path name may consist of the “.” and “..” characters. These are references to current and parent directories
respectively.
 Ex: ../../.login denotes .login file which may be found 2 levels up from the current directory
 A file name may not exceed NAME_MAX characters (14 bytes) and the total number of characters of a path name may
 not exceed PATH_MAX (1024 bytes).
 POSIX.1 defines _POSIX_NAME_MAX and _POSIX_PATH_MAX in <limits.h> header
 File name can be any of the following character set only
A to Z a to z 0 to 9 _
 Path name of a file is called the hardlink.
 A file may be referenced by more than one path name if a user creates one or more hard links to the file
using ln command.
ln /usr/foo/path1 /usr/prog/new/n1
 If the –s option is used, then it is a symbolic (soft) link .

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The following files are commonly defined in most UNIX systems

FILE Use

/etc Stores system administrative files and programs

/etc/passwd Stores all user information’s

/etc/shadow Stores user passwords

/etc/group Stores all group information

/bin Stores all the system programs like cat, rm, cp,etc.

/dev Stores all character device and block device files

/usr/include Stores all standard header files.

/usr/lib Stores standard libraries

/tmp Stores temporary files created by program

The UNIX and POSIX File Attributes

The general file attributes for each file in a file system are:

1) File type - specifies what type of file it is.

2) Access permission - the file access permission for owner, group and others.
3) Hard link count - number of hard link of the file
4) Uid - the file owner user id.
5) Gid - the file group id.
6) File size - the file size in bytes.
7) Inode no - the system inode no of the file.
8) File system id - the file system id where the file is stored.
9) Last access time - the time, the file was last accessed.
10) Last modified time - the file, the file was last modified.
11) Last change time - the time, the file was last changed.

In addition to the above attributes, UNIX systems also store the major and minor device numbers for each device file. All the
above attributes are assigned by the kernel to a file when it is created. The attributes that are constant for any file are:

 File type

 File inode number

 File system ID

Major and minor device number
The other attributes are changed by the following UNIX commands or system calls
Unix System Attributes changed
Command Call
chmod chmod Changes access permission, last change time
chown chown Changes UID, last change time
chgrp chown Changes GID, ast change time
touch utime Changes last access time, modification time
Ln link Increases hard link count
Rm unlink Decreases hard link count. If the hard link count is zero, the file will be
removed from the file system
vi, emac Changes the file size, last access time, last modification time

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Inodes in UNIX System V

In UNIX system V, a file system has an inode table, which keeps tracks of all files. Each entry of the inode table is an
inode record which contains all the attributes of a file, including inode # and the physical disk address where data of the
 file is stored

For any operation, if a kernel needs to access information of a file with an inode # 15, it will scan the inode table to find
 an entry, which contains an inode # 15 in order to access the necessary data. 

 An inode # is unique within a file system. A file inode record is identified by a file system ID and an inode #.

Generally an OS does not keep the name of a file in its record, because the mapping of the filenames to inode# is done
via directory files i.e. a directory file contains a list of names of their respective inode # for all file stored in that
 directory.

Ex: a sample directory file content

Inode number File name

115
89 ..
201 xyz
346 a.out
201 xyz_ln1

To access a file, for example /usr/divya, the UNIX kernel always knows the “/” (root) directory inode # of any process. It
will scan the “/” directory file to find the inode number of the usr file. Once it gets the usr file inode #, it accesses the
 contents of usr file. It then looks for the inode # of divya file. 

Whenever a new file is created in a directory, the UNIX kernel allocates a new entry in the inode table to store the
 information of the new file

It will assign a unique inode # to the file and add the new file name and inode # to the directory file that contains it.

Application Program Interface to Files

The general interfaces to the files on UNIX and POSIX system are

 Files are identified by pathnames.

Files should be created before they can be used. The various commands and system calls to create files are listed
below.
File type commands system call
Regular file vi,pico,emac open,creat
Directory file mkdir mkdir,mknod
FIFO file mkfifo mkfifo,mknod
Device file mknod mknod
Symbolic link file ln –s symlink

For any application to access files, first it should be opened, generally we use open system call to open a file, and the
 returned value is an integer which is termed as file descriptor.

 There are certain limits of a process to open files. A maximum number of OPEN-MAX files can be opened
.The value is defined in <limits.h> header

 The data transfer function on any opened file is carried out by read and write system call.

 File hard links can be increased by link system call, and decreased by unlink system call.

 File attributes can be changed by chown, chmod and link system calls.

 File attributes can be queried (found out or retrieved) by stat and fstat system call.

UNIX and POSIX.1 defines a structure of data type stat i.e. defined in <sys/stat.h> header file. This contains the user
accessible attribute of a file. The definition of the structure can differ among implementation, but it 
could look like
struct stat
{
dev_t st_dev; /* file system ID */
ino_t st_ino; /* file inode number */
mode_
t st_ mode; /* contains file type and permission */
nlink_t st_nlink; /* hard link count */
uid_t st_uid; /* file user ID */
gid_t st_gid; /* file group ID */

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UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

dev_t st_rdev; /*contains major and minor device#*/

off_t st_size; /* file size in bytes */
time_
t st_atime; /* last access time */
time_
t st_mtime;/* last modification time */
time_
t st_ctime;/* last status change time */
};

UNIX Kernel Support for Files

In UNIX system V, the kernel maintains a file table that has an entry of all opened files and also there is an inode table that
contains a copy of file inodes that are most recently accessed.
A process, which gets created when a command is executed will be having its own data space (data structure) wherein it will be
having file descriptor table. The file descriptor table will be having an maximum of OPEN_MAX file entries. Whenever the
process calls the open function to open a file to read or write, the kernel will resolve the pathname to the file inode number.
The steps involved are :
1. The kernel will search the process descriptor table and look for the first unused entry. If an entry is found, that entry will be
designated to reference the file .The index of the entry will be returned to the process as the file descriptor of the opened file.
2. The kernel will scan the file table in its kernel space to find an unused entry that can be assigned to reference the file.
If an unused entry is found the following events will occur:

 The process file descriptor table entry will be set to point to this file table entry. 

 The file table entry will be set to point to the inode table entry, where the inode record of the file is stored. 

The file table entry will contain the current file pointer of the open file. This is an offset from the beginning of the file
 where the next read or write will occur. 

The file table entry will contain an open mode that specifies that the file opened is for read only, write only or read and
 write etc. This should be specified in open function call. 

The reference count (rc) in the file table entry is set to 1. Reference count is used to keep track of how many file
 descriptors from any process are referring the entry. 

The reference count of the in-memory inode of the file is increased by 1. This count specifies how many file table
entries are pointing to that inode.
If either (1) or (2) fails, the open system call returns -1 (failure/error)
Data Structure for File Manipulation

Normally the reference count in the file table entry is 1,if we wish to increase the rc in the file table entry, this can be done using
fork,dup,dup2 system call. When a open system call is succeeded, its return value will be an integer (file

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descriptor). Whenever the process wants to read or write data from the file, it should use the file descriptor as one of its
argument.
The following events will occur whenever a process calls the close function to close the files that are opened.
1. The kernel sets the corresponding file descriptor table entry to be unused.
2. It decrements the rc in the corresponding file table entry by 1, if rc not equal to 0 go to step 6.
3. The file table entry is marked as unused.
4. The rc in the corresponding file inode table entry is decremented by 1, if rc value not equal to 0 go to step 6.
5. If the hard link count of the inode is not zero, it returns to the caller with a success status otherwise it marks the inode table
entry as unused and de-allocates all the physical dusk storage of the file.
6. It returns to the process with a 0 (success) status.

Relationship of C Stream Pointers and File Descriptors

The major difference between the stream pointer and the file descriptors are as follows:

The file descriptor associated with a stream pointer can be extracted by fileno macro, which is declared in the <stdio.h> header.
int fileno(FILE * stream_pointer);
To convert a file descriptor to a stream pointer, we can use fdopen C library function
FILE *fdopen(int file_descriptor, char * open_mode);
The following lists some C library functions and the underlying UNIX APIs theyuse to perform their functions:

C library function UNIX system call used

fopen open
fread, fgetc, fscanf, fgets read
fwrite, fputc, fprintf, fputs write
fseek, fputc, fprintf, fputs lseek
fclose close

Directory Files

 It is a record-oriented file

 Each record contains the information of a file residing in that directory

 The record data type is struct dirent in UNIX System V and POSIX.1 and struct direct in BSD UNIX.

 The record content is implementation-dependent

They all contain 2 essential member fields
 File name
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o Inode number

Usage is to map file names to corresponding inode number 

Directory function Purpose

opendir Opens a directory file

readdir Reads next record from the file

closedir Closes a directory file

rewinddir Sets file pointer to beginning of file

Hard and Symbolic Links


 A hard link is a UNIX pathname for a file. Generally most of the UNIX files will be having only one hard link. 

 In order to create a hard link, we use the command ln.
Example : Consider a file /usr/ divya/old, to this we can create a hard link by
ln /usr/ divya/old /usr/ divya/new
after this we can refer the file by either /usr/ divya/old or /usr/ divya/new

Symbolic link can be creates by the same command ln but with option –s
Example: ln –s /usr/divya/old /usr/divya/new

ln command differs from the cp(copy) command in that cp creates a duplicated copy of a file to another file with a
 different pathname, whereas ln command creates a new directory to reference a file.

Let’s visualize the content of a directory file after the execution of command ln.
Case 1: for hardlink file
ln /usr/divya/abc /usr/raj/xyz
The content of the directory files /usr/divya and /usr/raj are

Both /urs/divya/abc and /usr/raj/xyz refer to the same inode number 201, thus type is no new file created.
Case 2: For the same operation, if ln –s command is used then a new inode will be created.
ln –s /usr/divya/abc /usr/raj/xyz
The content of the directory files divya and raj will be

If cp command was used then the data contents will be identical and the 2 files will be separate objects in the file system,
whereas in ln –s the data will contain only the path name.
Limitations of hard link:
1. User cannot create hard links for directories, unless he has super-user privileges.
2. User cannot create hard link on a file system that references files on a different file system, because inode number is unique
to a file system.
Differences between hard link and symbolic link are listed below:

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UNIX FILE APIs

General file API’s

Files in a UNIX and POSIX system may be any one of the following types:
 Regular file
 Directory File
 FIFO file
  Block device file
  character device file
 Symbolic link file.
There are special API’s to create these types of files. There is a set of Generic API’s that can be used to manipulate and create
more than one type of files. These API’s are:

open

This is used to establish a connection between a process and a file i.e. it is used to open an existing file for data transfer
 function or else it may be also be used to create a new file. 

The returned value of the open system call is the file descriptor (row number of the file table), which contains the inode
 information.

The prototype of open function is
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/fcntl.h>
int open(const char *pathname, int accessmode, mode_t permission);

 If successful, open returns a nonnegative integer representing the open file descriptor. 


If unsuccessful, open returns –1.

The first argument is the name of the file to be created or opened. This may be an absolute pathname or relative

pathname.

If the given pathname is symbolic link, the open function will resolve the symbolic link reference to a non symbolic link
 file to which it refers.

The second argument is access modes, which is an integer value that specifies how actually the file should be accessed
 by the calling process.

Generally the access modes are specified in <fcntl.h>. Various access modes are: 
O_RDONLY - open for reading file only
O_WRONLY - open for writing file only
O_RDWR - opens for reading and writing file.
There are other access modes, which are termed as access modifier flags, and one or more of the following can be specified by
bitwise-ORing them with one of the above access mode flags to alter the access mechanism of the file.
O_APPEND - Append data to the end of file.
O_CREAT - Create the file if it doesn’t exist
O_EXCL - Generate an error if O_CREAT is also specified and the file already exists.
O_TRUNC - If file exists discard the file content and set the file size to zero bytes.
O_NONBLOCK - Specify subsequent read or write on the file should be non-blocking.
O_NOCTTY - Specify not to use terminal device file as the calling process control terminal.

To illustrate the use of the above flags, the following example statement opens a file called /usr/divya/usp for read and
 write in append mode:
int fd=open(“/usr/divya/usp”,O_RDWR | O_APPEND,0);

 If the file is opened in read only, then no other modifier flags can be used. 

 If a file is opened in write only or read write, then we are allowed to use any modifier flags along with them. 

The third argument is used only when a new file is being created. The symbolic names for file permission are given in the
table in the previous page.

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES


creat

 This system call is used to create new regular files. 

The prototype of creat is
#include <sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
int creat(const char *pathname, mode_t mode);

 Returns: file descriptor opened for write-only if OK, -1 on error.

 The first argument pathname specifies name of the file to be created. 

 The second argument mode_t, specifies permission of a file to be accessed by owner group and others. 

 The creat function can be implemented using open function as:
#define creat(path_name, mode)
open (pathname, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, mode);


read

 The read function fetches a fixed size of block of data from a file referenced by a given file descriptor. 

The prototype of read function is:
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
size_t read(int fdesc, void *buf, size_t nbyte);

 If successful, read returns the number of bytes actually read.


If unsuccessful, read returns –1.

 The first argument is an integer, fdesc that refers to an opened file.

 The second argument, buf is the address of a buffer holding any data read. 

 The third argument specifies how many bytes of data are to be read from the file. 

 The size_t data type is defined in the <sys/types.h> header and should be the same as unsigned int.

 There are several cases in which the number of bytes actually read is less than the amount requested: 
o When reading from a regular file, if the end of file is reached before the requested number of bytes has been
 read. For example, if 30 bytes remain until the end of file and we try to read 100 bytes, read
returns 30. The next time we call read, it will return 0 (end of file).
o When reading from a terminal device. Normally, up to one line is read at a time.
o When reading from a network. Buffering within the network may cause less than the requested amount
 to be returned.
o When reading from a pipe or FIFO. If the pipe contains fewer bytes than requested, read will return only what is
available.


write

 The write system call is used to write data into a file.

The write function puts data to a file in the form of fixed block size referred by a given file descriptor. 
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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

 The prototype of write is
 #include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
ssize_t write(int fdesc, const void *buf, size_t size);

 If successful, write returns the number of bytes actually written.


If unsuccessful, write returns –1.

 The first argument, fdesc is an integer that refers to an opened file. 

 The second argument, buf is the address of a buffer that contains data to be written. 

 The third argument, size specifies how many bytes of data are in the buf argument. 

The return value is usually equal to the number of bytes of data successfully written to a file. (size value)

close

 The close system call is used to terminate the connection to a file from a process. 

The prototype of the close is
#include<unistd.h>
int close(int fdesc);

 If successful, close returns 0.


If unsuccessful, close returns –1.

 The argument fdesc refers to an opened file. 

Close function frees the unused file descriptors so that they can be reused to reference other files. This is important
because a process may open up to OPEN_MAX files at any time and the close function allows a process to reuse file
 descriptors to access more than OPEN_MAX files in the course of its execution. 

The close function de-allocates system resources like file table entry and memory buffer allocated to hold the
read/write.


fcntl

 The fcntl function helps a user to query or set flags and the close-on-exec flag of any file descriptor.

 The prototype of fcntl is
#include<fcntl.h>
int fcntl(int fdesc, int cmd, …);

 The first argument is the file descriptor. 

 The second argument cmd specifies what operation has to be performed.

 The third argument is dependent on the actual cmd value. 

The possible cmd values are defined in <fcntl.h> header. 

cmd value Use

F_GETFL Returns the access control flags of a file descriptor fdesc
F_SETFL Sets or clears access control flags that are specified in the third argument to
fcntl. The allowed access control flags are O_APPEND & O_NONBLOCK
F_GETFD Returns the close-on-exec flag of a file referenced by fdesc. If a return value is
zero, the flag is off; otherwise on.
F_SETFD Sets or clears the close-on-exec flag of a fdesc. The third argument to fcntl is
an integer value, which is 0 to clear the flag, or 1 to set the flag
F_DUPFD Duplicates file descriptor fdesc with another file descriptor. The third
argument to fcntl is an integer value which specifies that the duplicated file
descriptor must be greater than or equal to that value. The return value of
fcntl is the duplicated file descriptor

 The fcntl function is useful in changing the access control flag of a file descriptor. 

For example: after a file is opened for blocking read-write access and the process needs to change the access to non-
blocking and in write-append mode, it can call:

int cur_flags=fcntl(fdesc,F_GETFL);
int rc=fcntl(fdesc,F_SETFL,cur_flag | O_APPEND | O_NONBLOCK);

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
The following example reports the close-on-exec flag of fdesc, sets it to on afterwards:
cout<<fdesc<<”close-on-
exec”<<fcntl(fdesc,F_GETFD)<<endl;
(void)fcntl(fdesc,F_SETFD,1); //turn on close-on-
exec flag

The following statements change the standard input og a process to a file called FOO:
int //open FOO for read
fdesc=open(“FOO”,O_RDONLY); //close standard input
close(0);
if(fcntl(fdesc,F_DUPFD,0)==-1)
perror(“fcntl”); //stdin from FOO now
char buf[256];
int rc=read(0,buf,256); //read data from FOO

The dup and dup2 functions in UNIX perform the same file duplication function as fcntl.
They can be implemented using fcntl as:

#define dup(fdesc) fcntl(fdesc, F_DUPFD,0)

#define dup2(fdesc1,fd2) close(fd2),fcntl(fdesc,F_DUPFD,fd2)


lseek

 The lseek function is also used to change the file offset to a different value. 

 Thus lseek allows a process to perform random access of data on any opened file.

 The prototype of lseek is
#include <sys/types.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
off_t lseek(int fdesc, off_t pos, int whence);


On success it returns new file offset, and –1 on error.

 The first argument fdesc, is an integer file descriptor that refer to an opened file. 

The second argument pos, specifies a byte offset to be added to a reference location in deriving the new file offset
 value.

The third argument whence, is the reference location. 

Whence value Reference location

SEEK_CUR Current file pointer address
SEEK_SET The beginning of a file
SEEK_END The end of a file

 They are defined in the <unistd.h> header.

 If an lseek call will result in a new file offset that is beyond the current end-of-file, two outcomes possible are:
o If a file is opened for read-only, lseek will fail.
 o If a file is opened for write access, lseek will succeed.
o The data between the end-of-file and the new file offset address will be initialised with NULL characters.


link

 The link function creates a new link for the existing file. 

 The prototype of the link function is
#include <unistd.h>
int link(const char *cur_link, const char *new_link);

 If successful, the link function returns 0. 


If unsuccessful, link returns –1.

 The first argument cur_link, is the pathname of existing file. 

 The second argument new_link is a new pathname to be assigned to the same file. 

 If this call succeeds, the hard link count will be increased by 1.

The UNIX ln command is implemented using the link API.

Page 4
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
/*test_ln.c*/
#include<iostream.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<unistd.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv)

{
if(argc!=3)
{
cerr<<”usage:”<<argv[0]<<”<src_file><dest_fil
e>\n”; return 0;
}
if(link(argv[1],argv[2])==-1)
{
perror(“link”);
return 1;
}
return 0;
}


unlink

 The unlink function deletes a link of an existing file. 

This function decreases the hard link count attributes of the named file, and removes the file name entry of the link
 from directory file.

A file is removed from the file system when its hard link count is zero and no process has any file descriptor referencing
 that file.

 The prototype of unlink is
#include <unistd.h>
int unlink(const char * cur_link);

 If successful, the unlink function returns 0.


If unsuccessful, unlink returns –1.

 The argument cur_link is a path name that references an existing file. 

 ANSI C defines the rename function which does the similar unlink operation.

The prototype of the rename function is: 
#include<stdio.h>
int rename(const char * old_path_name,const char * new_path_name);

The UNIX mv command can be implemented using the link and unlink APIs as shown: 
#include <iostream.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include<string.h>
int main ( int argc, char *argv[ ])
{
if (argc != 3 || strcmp(argv[1],argcv[2]))
cerr<<”usage:”<<argv[0]<<””<old_link><new_lin
k>\n”;
else if(link(argv[1],argv[2]) == 0)
return unlink(argv[1]);
return 1;
}


stat, fstat

 The stat and fstat function retrieves the file attributes of a given file.

The only difference between stat and fstat is that the first argument of a stat is a file pathname, where as the first
 argument of fstat is file descriptor.

 The prototypes of these functions are
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>


int stat(const char *pathname, struct stat *statv); int

fstat(const int fdesc, struct stat *statv);

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

The second argument to stat and fstat is the address of a struct stat-typed variable which is defined in the <sys/stat.h>
 header.

Its declaration is as follows:
struct stat
{
dev_t st_dev; /* file system ID */
ino_t st_ino; /* file inode number */
/* contains file type and
mode_t st_mode; permission */
nlink_t st_nlink; /* hard link count */
uid_t st_uid; /* file user ID */
gid_t st_gid; /* file group ID */
/*contains major and minor
dev_t st_rdev; device#*/
off_t st_size; /* file size in bytes */
time_t st_atime; /* last access time */
time_t st_mtime; /* last modification time */
st_ctime
time_t ; /* last status change time */
};

The return value of both functions is o
 0 if they succeed
o -1 if they fail
o errno contains an error status code

 The lstat function prototype is the same as that of stat: 
 int lstat(const char * path_name, struct stat* statv);

We can determine the file type with the macros as shown. 
macro Type of file
S_ISREG() regular file
S_ISDIR() directory file
S_ISCHR() character special file
S_ISBLK() block special file
S_ISFIFO() pipe or FIFO
S_ISLNK() symbolic link
S_ISSOCK() socket
Note: refer UNIX lab program 3(b) for example


access

 The access system call checks the existence and access permission of user to a named file. 

 The prototype of access function is:
#include<unistd.h>
int access(const char *path_name, int flag);


On success access returns 0, on failure it returns –1.

 The first argument is the pathname of a file. 

The second argument flag, contains one or more of the following bit flag . 
Bit flag Uses
F_OK Checks whether a named file exist
R_OK Test for read permission
W_OK Test for write permission
X_OK Test for execute permission

 The flag argument value to an access call is composed by bitwise-ORing one or more of the above bit flags as shown: 
 int rc=access(“/usr/divya/usp.txt”,R_OK | W_OK);

 example to check whether a file exists:
if(access(“/usr/divya/usp.txt”, F_OK)==-
 1) printf(“file does not exists”);
else
printf(“file exists”);

Page 6
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

chmod, fchmod

The chmod and fchmod functions change file access permissions for owner, group & others as well as the set_UID,
 set_GID and sticky flags.

 A process must have the effective UID of either the super-user/owner of the file.

 The prototypes of these functions are
 #include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>


int chmod(const char *pathname, mode_t flag); int

 fchmod(int fdesc, mode_t flag);

The pathname argument of chmod is the path name of a file whereas the fdesc argument of fchmod is the file
 descriptor of a file.

The chmod function operates on the specified file, whereas the fchmod function operates on a file that has already
 been opened.

To change the permission bits of a file, the effective user ID of the process must be equal to the owner ID of the file, or
the process must have super-user permissions. The mode is specified as the bitwise OR of the constants shown below. 
Mode Description

S_ISUID set-user-ID on execution

S_ISGID set-group-ID on execution
S_ISVTX saved-text (sticky bit)
S_IRWXU read, write, and execute by user (owner)
S_IRUSR read by user (owner)
S_IWUSR write by user (owner)
S_IXUSR execute by user (owner)
S_IRWXG read, write, and execute by group
S_IRGRP read by group
S_IWGRP write by group
S_IXGRP execute by group
S_IRWXO read, write, and execute by other (world)
S_IROTH read by other (world)
S_IWOTH write by other (world)
S_IXOTH execute by other (world)


chown, fchown, lchown

 The chown functions changes the user ID and group ID of files.

 The prototypes of these functions are
#include<unistd.h>
#include<sys/types.h>


int chown(const char *path_name, uid_t uid, gid_t gid); int

 fchown(int fdesc, uid_t uid, gid_t gid);
int lchown(const char *path_name, uid_t uid, gid_t gid);

 The path_name argument is the path name of a file. 

 The uid argument specifies the new user ID to be assigned to the file. 

The gid argument specifies the new group ID to be assigned to the file. 
/* Program to illustrate chown function */
#include<iostream.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<pwd.h>
Page 7
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
int main(int argc, char *argv[ ])
{
if(argc>3)
{
cerr<<”usage:”<<argv[0]<<”<usr_name><file>..
..\n”; return 1;
}

struct passwd *pwd = getpwuid(argv[1]) ;

uid_t UID = pwd ? pwd -> pw_uid : -1 ;
struct stat statv;

if (UID == (uid_t)-1)
cerr <<“Invalid user name”;
else for (int i = 2; i < argc ; i++)
if (stat(argv[i], &statv)==0)
{
if (chown(argv[i], UID,statv.st_gid))
perror (“chown”);
else
perror (“stat”);
}
return 0;
}


The above program takes at least two command line arguments: o
 The first one is the user name to be assigned to files 
 o The second and any subsequent arguments are file path names.

The program first converts a given user name to a user ID via getpwuid function. If that succeeds, the program
processes each named file as follows: it calls stat to get the file group ID, then it calls chown to change the file user ID. If
either the stat or chown fails, error is displayed.


utime Function

 The utime function modifies the access time and the modification time stamps of a file. 

The prototype of utime function is
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<utime.h>

int utime(const char *path_name, struct utimbuf *times);



On success it returns 0, on failure it returns –1.

 The path_name argument specifies the path name of a file. 

 The times argument specifies the new access time and modification time for the file. 

The struct utimbuf is defined in the <utime.h> header as:
struct utimbuf
{
time_t actime; /* access time */
time_t modtime; /* modification time */
}

The time_t datatype is an unsigned long and its data is the number of the seconds elapsed since the birthday of UNIX :
 12 AM , Jan 1 of 1970.

If the times (variable) is specified as NULL, the function will set the named file access and modification time to the
 current time.

If the times (variable) is an address of the variable of the type struct utimbuf, the function will set the file access time
and modification time to the value specified by the variable. 

File and Record Locking


 Multiple processes performs read and write operation on the same file concurrently. 

This provides a means for data sharing among processes, but it also renders difficulty for any process in determining
when the other process can override data in a file. 

Page 8
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

 So, in order to overcome this drawback UNIX and POSIX standard support file locking mechanism. 

 File locking is applicable for regular files.

 Only a process can impose a write lock or read lock on either a portion of a file or on the entire file. 

The differences between the read lock and the write lock is that when write lock is set, it prevents the other process
 from setting any over-lapping read or write lock on the locked file. 

Similarly when a read lock is set, it prevents other processes from setting any overlapping write locks on the locked

region.

The intension of the write lock is to prevent other processes from both reading and writing the locked region while the
 process that sets the lock is modifying the region, so write lock is termed as “Exclusive lock”.

The use of read lock is to prevent other processes from writing to the locked region while the process that sets the lock
 is reading data from the region.

Other processes are allowed to lock and read data from the locked regions. Hence a read lock is also called as “shared
 lock “.

 File lock may be mandatory if they are enforced by an operating system kernel.

If a mandatory exclusive lock is set on a file, no process can use the read or write system calls to access the data on the
 locked region.

 These mechanisms can be used to synchronize reading and writing of shared files by multiple processes.

If a process locks up a file, other processes that attempt to write to the locked regions are blocked until the former
 process releases its lock.

Problem with mandatory lock is – if a runaway process sets a mandatory exclusive lock on a file and never unlocks it,
then, no other process can access the locked region of the file until the runway process is killed or the system has to be
 rebooted.

 If locks are not mandatory, then it has to be advisory lock.

 A kernel at the system call level does not enforce advisory locks.

This means that even though a lock may be set on a file, no other processes can still use the read and write functions to
 access the file.

To make use of advisory locks, process that manipulate the same file must co-operate such that they follow
the given below procedure for every read or write operation to the file.
1. Try to set a lock at the region to be accesses. If this fails, a process can either wait for the lock request to
become successful.
2. After a lock is acquired successfully, read or write the locked region.
3. Release the lock.

If a process sets a read lock on a file, for example from address 0 to 256, then sets a write lock on the file from address
0 to 512, the process will own only one write lock on the file from 0 to 512, the previous read lock from 0 to 256 is now
covered by the write lock and the process does not own two locks on the region from 0 to 256. This process is called
 “Lock Promotion”.

Furthermore, if a process now unblocks the file from 128 to 480, it will own two write locks on the file: one from 0 to
 127 and the other from 481 to 512. This process is called “Lock Splitting”.

UNIX systems provide fcntl function to support file locking. By using fcntl it is possible to impose read or write locks on
 either a region or an entire file.

 The prototype of fcntl is
 #include<fcntl.h>
 int fcntl(int fdesc, int cmd_flag, ....);

 The first argument specifies the file descriptor. 

 The second argument cmd_flag specifies what operation has to be performed. 

If fcntl is used for file locking then it can values as
F_SETLK sets a file lock, do not block if this cannot succeed immediately.
F_SETLKW sets a file lock and blocks the process until the lock is acquired.
F_GETLK queries as to which process locked a specified region of file.


 For file locking purpose, the third argument to fctnl is an address of a struct flock type variable.

This variable specifies a region of a file where lock is to be set, unset or queried. 
struct flock
{
Page 9
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

short l_type; /* what lock to be set or to unlock file */

l_whence
short ; /* Reference address for the next field */
off_t l_start
; /*offset from the l_whence reference addr*/
off_t l_len ; /*how many bytes in the locked region */
pid_t l_pid ; /*pid of a process which has locked the file */
};

The l_type field specifies the lock type to be set or unset. 

The possible values, which are defined in the <fcntl.h> header, and their uses are

l_type value Use

F_RDLCK Set a read lock on a specified region
F_WRLCK Set a write lock on a specified region
F_UNLCK Unlock a specified region


 The l_whence, l_start & l_len define a region of a file to be locked or unlocked. 

The possible values of l_whence and their uses are
l_whence value Use
SEEK_CUR The l_start value is added to current file pointer address
SEEK_SET The l_start value is added to byte 0 of the file
SEEK_END The l_start value is added to the end of the file


A lock set by the fcntl API is an advisory lock but we can also use fcntl for mandatory locking purpose with the following
 attributes set before using fcntl
1. Turn on the set-GID flag of the file.
2. Turn off the group execute right permission of the file.

In the given example program we have performed a read lock on a file “divya” from the 10th byte to 25th byte.

Example Program
#include <unistd.h>
#include<fcntl.h>
int main ( )
{
int fd;
struct flock lock;
fd=open(“divya”,O_RDONLY);
lock.l_type=F_RDLCK;
lock.l_whence=0;
lock.l_start=10;
lock.l_len=15;
fcntl(fd,F_SETLK,&lock);
}

Directory File API’s


A Directory file is a record-oriented file, where each record stores a file name and the inode number of a file that
 resides in that directory.

 Directories are created with the mkdir API and deleted with the rmdir API. 

The prototype of mkdir is
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>

int mkdir(const char *path_name, mode_t mode);


 The first argument is the path name of a directory file to be created. 

The second argument mode, specifies the access permission for the owner, groups and others to be assigned to the file.
 This function creates a new empty directory.

The entries for “.” and “..” are automatically created. The specified file access permission, mode, are modified by the
file mode creation mask of the process.
Page 10
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

To allow a process to scan directories in a file system independent manner, a directory record is defined as struct dirent
 in the <dirent.h> header for UNIX.

Some of the functions that are defined for directory file operations in the above header are 
#include<sys/types.h>
#if defined (BSD)&&!_POSIX_SOURCE
#include<sys/dir.h>
typedef struct direct Dirent;
#else
#include<dirent.h>
typedef struct direct Dirent;
#endif

DIR *opendir(const char *path_name);

Dirent *readdir(DIR *dir_fdesc);
int closedir(DIR *dir_fdesc);
void rewinddir(DIR *dir_fdsec);
The uses of these functions are
Function Use
opendir Opens a directory file for read-only. Returns a file handle dir * for future
reference of the file.
readdir Reads a record from a directory file referenced by dir-fdesc and returns that
record information.
rewinddir Resets the file pointer to the beginning of the directory file referenced by dir-
fdesc. The next call to readdir will read the first record from the file.
closedir closes a directory file referenced by dir-fdesc.

 An empty directory is deleted with the rmdir API. 

 The prototype of rmdir is
#include<unistd.h>
 int rmdir (const char * path_name);

If the link count of the directory becomes 0, with the call and no other process has the directory open then the space
 occupied by the directory is freed.

UNIX systems have defined additional functions for random access of directory file records. 

Function Use
telldir Returns the file pointer of a given dir_fdesc
seekdir Changes the file pointer of a given dir_fdesc to a specified address
The following list_dir.C program illustrates the uses of the mkdir, opendir, readdir, closedir and rmdir APIs:
#include<iostream.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#if defined(BSD) && !_POSIX_SOURCE
#include<sys/dir.h>
typedef struct dirent Dirent;
#else
#include<dirent.h>
typedef struct dirent Dirent;
#endif

int main(int agc, char* argv[])

{
Dirent* dp;
DIR* dir_fdesc;
while(--argc>0)
{
if(!(dir_fdesc=opendir(*++argv)))
{
if(mkdir(*argv,S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO)==-1)
perror("opendir");
continue;
}
for(int i=0;i<2;i++)

Page 11
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
for(int cnt=0;dp=readdir(dir_fdesc);)
{
if(i)
cout<<dp->d_name<<endl;
if(strcmp(dp->d_name,".") && strcmp(dp->d_name,".."))
cnt++;
}
if(!cnt)
{
rmdir(*argv);
break;
}
rewinddir(dir_fdesc);
}
closedir(dir_fdesc);
}
}

Device file APIs


 Device files are used to interface physical device with application programs. 

 A process with superuser privileges to create a device file must call the mknod API. 

 The user ID and group ID attributes of a device file are assigned in the same manner as for regular files. 

When a process reads or writes to a device file, the kernel uses the major and minor device numbers of a file to select a
 device driver function to carry out the actual data transfer. 

 Device file support is implementation dependent. UNIX System defines the mknod API to create device files. 

The prototype of mknod is
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>

int mknod(const char* path_name, mode_t mode, int device_id);


 The first argument pathname is the pathname of a device file to be created. 

The second argument mode specifies the access permission, for the owner, group and others, also S_IFCHR or S_IBLK
 flag to be assigned to the file.

 The third argument device_id contains the major and minor device number. 

Example
mknod(“SCSI5”,S_IFBLK | S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO,(15<<8) | 3);

The above function creates a block device file “divya”, to which all the three i.e. read, write and execute permission is
 granted for user, group and others with major number as 8 and minor number 3. 

On success mknod API returns 0 , else it returns -1
The following test_mknod.C program illustrates the use of the mknod, open, read, write and close APIs on a block device file.
#include<iostream.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<fcntl.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])

{
if(argc!=4)
{
cout<<"usage:"<<argv[0]<<"<file><major_no><minor
_no>"; return 0;
}
int major=atoi(argv[2],minor=atoi(argv[3]);
(void) mknod(argv[1], S_IFCHR | S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO, (major<<8) | minor);

int rc=1,fd=open(argv[1],O_RDW | O_NONBLOCK | O_NOCTTY);

char buf[256];
while(rc && fd!=-1)
if((rc=read(fd,buf,sizeof(buf)))<0)
perror("read");

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
else if(rc)
cout<<buf<<endl;
close(fd);
}

FIFO file API’s


 FIFO files are sometimes called named pipes.

 Pipes can be used only between related processes when a common ancestor has created the pipe. 

 Creating a FIFO is similar to creating a file.

 Indeed the pathname for a FIFO exists in the file system. 

The prototype of mkfifo is
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<unistd.h>

int mkfifo(const char *path_name, mode_t mode);


 The first argument pathname is the pathname(filename) of a FIFO file to be created. 

The second argument mode specifies the access permission for user, group and others and as well as the S_IFIFO flag to
 indicate that it is a FIFO file.


On success it returns 0 and on failure it returns –1.

Example
mkfifo(“FIFO5”,S_IFIFO | S_IRWXU | S_IRGRP | S_ROTH);

The above statement creates a FIFO file “divya” with read-write-execute permission for user and only read permission
 for group and others.

 Once we have created a FIFO using mkfifo, we open it using open.

 Indeed, the normal file I/O functions (read, write, unlink etc) all work with FIFOs. 

When a process opens a FIFO file for reading, the kernel will block the process until there is another process that opens
 the same file for writing.

Similarly whenever a process opens a FIFO file write, the kernel will block the process until another process opens the
 same FIFO for reading.

 This provides a means for synchronization in order to undergo inter-process communication.

If a particular process tries to write something to a FIFO file that is full, then that process will be blocked until another
 process has read data from the FIFO to make space for the process to write. 

Similarly, if a process attempts to read data from an empty FIFO, the process will be blocked until another process
 writes data to the FIFO.

 From any of the above condition if the process doesn’t want to get blocked then we should specify 
O_NONBLOCK in the open call to the FIFO file.


If the data is not ready for read/write then open returns –1 instead of process getting blocked.

If a process writes to a FIFO file that has no other process attached to it for read, the kernel will send SIGPIPE signal to
 the process to notify that it is an illegal operation.

 Another method to create FIFO files (not exactly) for inter-process communication is to use the pipe system call. 

 The prototype of pipe is
#include <unistd.h> int
 pipe(int fds[2]);


Returns 0 on success and –1 on failure.

If the pipe call executes successfully, the process can read from fd[0] and write to fd[1]. A single process with a pipe is
not very useful. Usually a parent process uses pipes to communicate with its children.
The following test_fifo.C example illustrates the use of mkfifo, open, read, write and close APIs for a FIFO file:
#include<iostream.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<fcntl.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<errno.h>

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

int main(int argc,char* argv[])

{
if(argc!=2 && argc!=3)
{
cout<<"usage:"<<argv[0]<<"<file> [<arg>]";
return 0;
}
int fd;
char buf[256];
(void) mkfifo(argv[1], S_IFIFO | S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO );
if(argc==2)
{
fd=open(argv[1],O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK);
while(read(fd,buf,sizeof(buf))==-1 &&
errno==EAGAIN)
sleep(1);
while(read(fd,buf,sizeof(buf))>0)
cout<<buf<<endl;
}
else
{
fd=open(argv[1],O_WRONLY);
write(fd,argv[2],strlen(argv[2]));
}
close(fd);
}

Symbolic Link File API’s


 A symbolic link is an indirect pointer to a file, unlike the hard links which pointed directly to the inode of the file. 

Symbolic links are developed to get around the limitations of hard links: o
Symbolic links can link files across file systems.
o Symbolic links can link directory files
o Symbolic links always reference the latest version of the files to which they link
o There are no file system limitations on a symbolic link and what it points to and anyone can create a
 symbolic link to a directory.
o Symbolic links are typically used to move a file or an entire directory hierarchy to some other location on
 a system.
o A symbolic link is created with the symlink. o
 The prototype is
#include<unistd.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>


int symlink(const char *org_link, const char *sym_link); int

readlink(const char* sym_link,char* buf,int size); int
 lstat(const char * sym_link, struct stat* statv);

The org_link and sym_link arguments to a sym_link call specify the original file path name and the symbolic link path
name to be created.

/* Program to illustrate symlink function */

#include<unistd.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<string.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

{
char *buf [256], tname [256];
if (argc ==4)
return symlink(argv[2], argv[3]); /* create a symbolic link
*/ else
return link(argv[1], argv[2]); /* creates a hard link */
}

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

General file class


 In C++, fstream class is used to define objects, which represent files in a file system. 

 The fstream class contains member functions like open, close, read, write, seekg and tellg. 

 The fstream class does not provide member functions like stat chown, chmod, utime and link functions on its object. 

To overcome the fstream class deficiency a new filebase class is defined, which incorporates the fstream class
properties and additional function to allow users to get or change object file attributes and to create hard links.

/* filebase.h */
#define FILEBASE_H
#ifndef FILEBASE_H
#include<fstream.h>
#include<iostream.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<sys/stat.h>
#include<fcntl.h>
#include<utime.h>
typedef enum
{
REG_FILE=‟r‟, DIR_FILE=‟d‟, CHAR_FILE=‟c‟ PIPE_FILE=‟p‟,
SYM_FILE = „s‟, BLK_FILE = „b‟, UNKNOWN_FILE = „?‟
}
FILE_TYPE_ENUM;
class filebase : public fstream
{
protected:
char *filename;
friend ostream& operator<<(ostream& os,filebase& fobj)
{return os;};
public :
file base() {filename =0:};
file base(const char *fn, int flags, int prot = filebuf :: openprot)
ifstream(fn, flags, prot)
{
filename = newchar[strlen(fn) + 1];
strcpy(filename, fn);
};
virtual ~filebase() {delete filename;};
virtual int create(const char *fn, mode_t mode)
{
return :: create(fn, mode);
};
int fileno()
{
return rdbuf()->fd();
};
int chmod(mode_t mode)
{
return :: chmod(filename, mode);
};
int chown(uid_t uid, gid_t gid)
{
return :: chown(filename, uid, gid);
};
int link (const char *new_link)
{
return :: link (filename, new_link);
};
int utime (const struct utim buf *timbuf_ptr)
{
return :: utime (filename, timbuf_ptr);
};
virtual int remove()

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
{
return :: unlink(filename );
};
FILE_TYPE_ENUM file_type()
{
struct stat statv;
if (stat(filename, &statv)==0)
switch (statv.st_mode & S_IFMT)
{
case S_IFREG : return REG_FILE : /* Regular file */
case S_IFIFO : return PIPE_FILE; /* block device file */
case S_IFCHR : return CHAR_FILE ; /* character device file */
case S_IFDIR : return DIR_FILE ; /* Directory file */
case S_IFLNK : return SYM_FILE ; /* Symbolic link file */
}
return UNKNOWN_FILE;
};
};
#endif /*filebase.h*/

/* Program to illustrate the use of the file base class */

#include “filebase.h”
int main()
{
filebase file(“/usr/text/usp.doc”, ios :: in); //define an object
cout <<file; //display file attributes file.chown(20, 40);
//change UID and GID file.utime( ); //touch time stamp
file.link(“/home/divya/hdlnk”); //create a hard link
file.remove(); //remove the old link }

Regfile Class for Regular Files


 The regfile class is defined as a subclass of filebase. 

The filebase class encapsulates most of the properties and functions needed to represent regular file objects in UNIX
 systems except file locking.

 Thus, objects of regfile class can do all regular file operations permitted in filebase class include file locking functions. 

 regfile::lock  set read lock or write lock.

regfile::lockw  wrapper over the regfile::lock and it locks files in blocking mode. 

regfile::getlock  queries lock information for a region of a file associated with a regfile object . 

regfile::unlock  unlocks a region of a file associated with a regfile object.
/* Regfile.h*/
#define REGFILE_H
#ifndef REGFILE_H
#include “filebase.h”
Class regfile : public filebase
{
Public :
regfile(const char *fn, int mode, int prot): filebase(fn, mode,
prot)
{};
~regfile() {};
int lock(int lck_type, off_t len, int cmd = F_SETLK)
{
struct flock
flck;
if ((lck_type & ios ::in) == ios :: n)
flck.l_type = F_RDLCK;
else if (lck_type & ios :: out) == ios :: out)
flck.l_type=F_WRLCK;
else return -1;
flck.l_whence _SEEK_CUR;
flck.l_Start = (off_t)O;
flck.l_len = len;
return fcntl(fileno(), cmd, & flck);
};
int lockw(int lck_type, off_t len)
Page 16
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
{
return lock(lck_type, len, F_SETLKW);
}
int unlock(off_t len)
{
Struct flock flck;
flck.l_type = F_UNLCK;
flck.l_whence = SEEK_CUR;
flck.l_start = (off_t)0;
flck.l_len = len;
return fcntl(fileno(), F_SETLK, & flck);
};
int getlock(int lck_type, off_t len, struct flock &flck)
{
if((lck_type &ios :: in) == ios :: in)
flck.l_type= F_RDLCK;
else if ((lck_type &ios :: out) == ios :: out)
flck.l_type = F_WRLCK;
else return -1;
flck.l_whence = SEEK_CUR;
flck.l_start = (off_t)O;
flck.l_len = len;
return fcntl(fileno(), F_GETLK, &flck);
};
};
#end if

/* Program to illustrate the use of regfile

class */ #include “regfile.h”
int main()
{
ifstream ifs(“/etc/passwd”);
char buf[256];
regfile rfile(“foo”, ios :: out | ios :: in);
rfile.lock(ios :: out, O); //set write lock for entire file
while (ifs.getline(buf, 256))
rfile << buf<<endl;
rfile.seekg(o, ios:: beg); //set fp to beginning of
the file rfile.unlock(10); //unlock first 10bytes of
file rfile.remove(); //remove the file }

dirfile class for Directory file

The dirfile class is defined to encapsulate all UNIX directory file functions. The dirfile class defines the create, open, read, tellg,
seekg, close and remove functions that use the UNIX directory file specific API’s. The dirfile class definition is:
/* dirfile.h*/
#ifndef DIRFILE_H
#define DIRFILE_H
#include<dirent.h>
#include<string.h>
class dirfile
{
char *filename;
DIR *dir_ptr;
public : dirfile(const char *fn)
{
dir_ptr = opendir(fn);
filename = strdup(fn);
};
~dirfile()
{
if (dir_ptr) close();
delete(filename);
};
int close()
{ if (dir_ptr) closedir(dir_ptr);
}; int creat(const char *fn,
mode_t prot) { return
mkdir(fn,prot); };

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 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

int open(const char *fn)

{
dir_ptr = opendir(fn);
return dir_ptr ? 0 : -1;
};
int read(char *buf, int size)
{
struct dirent *dp =
readdir(dir_ptr);
if (dp)
strncpy(buf, dp-> d_name,
size);
return dp ? strlen(dp-> d_name);
};
off_t tellg()
{ return telldir(dir_ptr); };
void seekg(streampos ofs,seek_dir
d)
{ seekdir(dir_ptr, ofs); };
int remove()
{ return rmdir(filename); };
};
#end if
/* Program to illustrate the use of dirfile
class */ #include “dirfile.h”
int main()
{
dirfile ndir, edir(“/etc”); //create a dirfile object to /etc
ndir.create (“/usr/lock/dirf.ex”);
char buf[256];
while(edir.read (buf, 256)) //echo files in the /etc dir
cout << buf<<endl;
edir.close(); //close a directory file
}

FIFO file Class

A FIFO file object differs from a filebase object in that a FIFO file is created, and the tellg and seekg functions are invalid for FIFO
file objects. The following pipefile class encapsulates all the FIFO file type properties:
/* pipefile.h */
#ifndef PIPEFILE_H
#define PIPEFILE_H
#include “filebase.h”
class pipefile : public filebase
{
public :
pipefile(const char *fn, int flags, int prot) : filebase(fn, flags,
prot) {}; int create(const char *fn, mode_t prot)
{ return mkfifo(fn, prot);
}; streampos tellg()
{ return (stream pos) -1 };
};
#end if
/* Program to illustrate the use of pipefile.h*/
#include “pipefile.h”
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
pipefile nfifo(“FIFO”, argc==1 ? ios :: in, ios :: out , 0755);
if (argc >1) //writer process
{
Cout<<”writer process write : “<< argv[1]<<endl;
nfifo write(argv [1], strlen (argv[1])+1); //write data to FIFO
}
Else //reader process
{
char buf [256];
nfifo.read(buf, 256); //read data from FIFO
cout<<“Read from FIFO”<< buf<<endl;
}
nfifo.close(); //close FIFO file
}

Page 18
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
Device File Class
A device file object has most of the properties of a regular file object except in the way that the device file object is created. Also
the tellg, seekg, lock, lockw, unlock and getlock functions are invalid for any character-based device file objects.
/*devfile.h*/
#define DEVFILE_H
#ifndef DEVFILE_H
#include “regfile.h”
class devfile : public regfile
{
public :
devfile(const char *fn, int flags, int prot): regfile(fn, flags, prot)
{};
int create (const char *fn, mode_t prot, int major_no, int minor_no, char type=‟c‟)
{
if (type ==‟c‟)
return mknod(fn, S_IFCHR | prot, (major_no <<8) |minor_no);
else
return mknod(fn, S_IFBLK | prot, (major_no << 8) | minor_no);
};
streampos tellg()
{
if (file_type() == CHAR_FILE)
return (streampos)-1;
else
return fstream :: tellg();
};
istream seekg(streampos ofs, seek_dir d)
{
if (file_type() ! = CHAR_FILE)
fstream :: seekg(ofs, d);
return *this :
};
int lock (int lck_type, off_t len, int cmd = F_SETLK)
{
if (file_type() != CHAR_FILE)
return regfile :: lock(lck_type, len, cmd);
else return -1;
};
int lockw(int lck_type, off_t len)
{
if (file_type() ! = CHAR_FILE)
return regfile :: lockw(lck_type, len);
else return-1;
};
int unlockw(off_t len)
{
if(file_type() ! = CHAR_FILE)
return regfile :: unlock(len);
else return -1;
};
int getlock(int lck_type, off_t len, struct flock &flck)
{
if (file_type()! = CHAR_FILE)
return regfile :: getlock(lck_type, len, flck);
else return -1;
};
};
#end if

/* Program to illustrate the use of devfile

class */ #include “devfile.h”
int main()
{
devfile ndev(“/dev/tty”, ios :: out, 0777);
ndev <<“this is a sample output string”;
ndev.close();
}
Page 19
 RNSIT UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES

Symbolic link file class

A symbolic link file object differs from a filebase object in the way it is created. Also, a new member function called ref_path is
provided to depict the path name of a file to which the symbolic link object refers.
/* symfile.h*/
#ifndef SYMFILE_H
#define SYMFILE_H
#include “filebase.h”
/*a class to encapsulate UNIX symbolic link file objects‟ properties*/
class symfile : public filebase
{
public :
symfile() {};
~symfile () {};
int setlink(const char *old_link, const char *new_link)
{
filename = new char[strlen(new_link) +1];
strcpy(filename, new_link);
return symlink(old_link, new_link);
};
void open(int mode)
{ fstream :: open(filename,
mode); }; const char *ref_path()
{
static char buf[256];
if (readlink(filename, buf,
256)) return buf;
else return (char *)-
1; }; };

#end if

/* Program to illustrate the use of symfile

class */ #include “symfile.h”
int main ()
{
char buf [256];
symfile nsym;
nsym.setlink (“/usr/file/chap 10”, “/usr/xyz/sym.lnk”);
nsym.open(ios:in);
while(nsym.getline(buf,
256)) //read /usr/file/chap 10
cout<<buf<<endl; //echo “/usr/file/chap 10”
cout<<nsym.ref_path()<<end //close the symbolic link file
l;
nsym.close();
}

File listing Program

A C program re-implements the UNIX ls command to list file attributes of all path name arguments specified for the program
using file base class and its subclasses. Further if an argument is a directory the program will list the file attributes of all files in
that directory and any subdirectories. If a file is a symbolic link, the program will echo the pathname to which the link refers.
Thus, the program behaves like the UNIX ls –lR command.

#include “filebase.h”
#include “dirfile.h”
#include “symfile.h”
void show_list(ostream &ofs, const char *fname, int
deep); extern void long_list (ostream &ofs, char
*fn); void show_dir(ostream &ofs, const char *fname)
{
dirfile dirobj(fname);
char buf[256];
ofs <<“Directory :” << fname;
while (dirobj.read(buf, 256))
{
filebase fobj(buf, ios :: in, O755);
if(fobj.file_type==DIR_FILE)
Page 20
 UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING NOTES
show_dir(ofs, buf);
fobj.close();
}
dirobj.close();
}
void show_list(ostream &ofs, const char *fname, int deep)
{
long_list(ofs, fname);
filebase fobj(fname, ios::n, O755);
if (fobj.file_type()==SYM_FILE)
{
Symfile *symobj = (symfile *) fobj;
ofs << “->” << symobj -> ref_path()<<endl;
}
else if (fobj.file_type() == DIR_FILE && deep)
Show_dir(ofs, fname);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
while (- -argc >0) show_list(cout, *++argv, 1);
return 0;
}

Summary
The inheritance hierarchy of all the file classes defined in the chapter is:

Page 21