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     OPEN(5)                                                   OPEN(5)

     NAME
          open, create - prepare a fid for I/O on an existing or new
          file

     SYNOPSIS
          size[4] Topen tag[2] fid[4] mode[1]
          size[4] Ropen tag[2] qid[13] iounit[4]

          size[4] Tcreate tag[2] fid[4] name[s] perm[4] mode[1]
          size[4] Rcreate tag[2] qid[13] iounit[4]

     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
          (called OREAD in <libc.h>), 1 (OWRITE), 2 (ORDWR), and 3
          (OEXEC) mean read access, write access, read and write
          access, and execute access, to be checked against the per-
          missions 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 trun-
          cated); 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.  All other
          bits in mode should be zero.  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, further opens will fail
          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 & (~0666 | (dir.perm & 0666))
          if a regular file is being created and
                    perm & (~0777 | (dir.perm & 0777))
          if a directory is being created.  This means, for example,
          that if the create allows read permission to others, but the
          containing directory does not, then the created file will
          not allow others to read the file.

          Finally, the newly created file is opened according to mode,

     OPEN(5)                                                   OPEN(5)

          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 DMDIR 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 the create system call 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).

          The iounit field returned by open and create may be zero.
          If it is not, it is the maximum number of bytes that are
          guaranteed to be read from or written to the file without
          breaking the I/O transfer into multiple 9P messages; see
          read(5).

     ENTRY POINTS
          Open and create both generate open messages; only create
          generates a create message.  The iounit associated with an
          open file may be discovered by calling iounit(2).

          For programs that need atomic file creation, without the
          race that exists in the open-create sequence described
          above, the kernel does the following.  If the OEXCL (0x1000)
          bit is set in the mode for a create system call, the open
          message is not sent; the kernel issues only the create.
          Thus, if the file exists, create will draw an error, but if
          it doesn't and the create system call succeeds, the process
          issuing the create is guaranteed to be the one that created
          the file.