UTIME(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual UTIME(3P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
utime -- set file access and modification times
SYNOPSIS
#include <utime.h>
int utime(const char *path, const struct utimbuf *times);
DESCRIPTION
The utime() function shall set the access and modification times of the
file named by the path argument.
If times is a null pointer, the access and modification times of the
file shall be set to the current time. The effective user ID of the
process shall match the owner of the file, or the process has write
permission to the file or has appropriate privileges, to use utime() in
this manner.
If times is not a null pointer, times shall be interpreted as a pointer
to a utimbuf structure and the access and modification times shall be
set to the values contained in the designated structure. Only a process
with the effective user ID equal to the user ID of the file or a
process with appropriate privileges may use utime() this way.
The utimbuf structure is defined in the <utime.h> header. The times in
the structure utimbuf are measured in seconds since the Epoch.
Upon successful completion, the utime() function shall mark the last
file status change timestamp for update; see <sys/stat.h>.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, 0 shall be returned. Otherwise, -1 shall be
returned and errno shall be set to indicate the error, and the file
times shall not be affected.
ERRORS
The utime() function shall fail if:
EACCES Search permission is denied by a component of the path prefix;
or the times argument is a null pointer and the effective user
ID of the process does not match the owner of the file, the
process does not have write permission for the file, and the
process does not have appropriate privileges.
ELOOP A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of
the path argument.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of a component of a pathname 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 names an existing file that is
neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a directory, or the
path argument contains at least one non-<slash> character and
ends with one or more trailing <slash> characters and the last
pathname component names an existing file that is neither a
directory nor a symbolic link to a directory.
EPERM The times argument is not a null pointer and the effective user
ID of the calling process does not match the owner of the file
and the calling process does not have appropriate privileges.
EROFS The file system containing the file is read-only.
The utime() function may fail if:
ELOOP More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during
resolution of the path argument.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or pathname resolu-
tion of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result with a
length that exceeds {PATH_MAX}.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
None.
APPLICATION USAGE
Since the utimbuf structure only contains time_t variables and is not
accurate to fractions of a second, applications should use the utimen-
sat() function instead of the obsolescent utime() function.
RATIONALE
The actime structure member must be present so that an application may
set it, even though an implementation may ignore it and not change the
last data access timestamp on the file. If an application intends to
leave one of the times of a file unchanged while changing the other, it
should use stat() or fstat() to retrieve the file's st_atim and st_mtim
parameters, set actime and modtime in the buffer, and change one of
them before making the utime() call.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The utime() function may be removed in a future version.
SEE ALSO
fstat(), fstatat(), futimens()
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2008, <sys_stat.h>, <utime.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri-
cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) 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.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker-
nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 UTIME(3P)