NAME

       lchown - change the owner and group of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int lchown(const char *path, uid_t owner, gid_t group);

DESCRIPTION

       The  lchown()  function shall be equivalent to chown(), except in the case where the named
       file is a symbolic link. In this case, lchown() shall change the ownership of the symbolic
       link  file  itself,  while chown() changes the ownership of the file or directory to which
       the symbolic link refers.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, lchown() shall return 0. Otherwise, it shall return -1 and set
       errno to indicate an error.

ERRORS

       The lchown() function shall fail if:

       EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix of path.

       EINVAL The owner or group ID is not a value supported by the implementation.

       ELOOP  A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The  length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX} or a pathname component 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 of path is not a directory.

       EOPNOTSUPP
              The path argument names a symbolic link and the  implementation  does  not  support
              setting the owner or group of a symbolic link.

       EPERM  The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the process does not
              have appropriate privileges.

       EROFS  The file resides on a read-only file system.

       The lchown() function may fail if:

       EIO    An I/O error occurred while reading or writing to the file system.

       EINTR  A signal was caught during execution of the function.

       ELOOP  More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during  resolution  of  the
              path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              Pathname resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result whose length
              exceeds {PATH_MAX}.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

   Changing the Current Owner of a File
       The following example shows how to  change  the  ownership  of  the  symbolic  link  named
       /modules/pass1  to  the  user  ID associated with "jones" and the group ID associated with
       "cnd".

       The numeric value for the user ID is obtained  by  using  the  getpwnam()  function.   The
       numeric value for the group ID is obtained by using the getgrnam() function.

              #include <sys/types.h>
              #include <unistd.h>
              #include <pwd.h>
              #include <grp.h>

              struct passwd *pwd;
              struct group  *grp;
              char          *path = "/modules/pass1";
              ...
              pwd = getpwnam("jones");
              grp = getgrnam("cnd");
              lchown(path, pwd->pw_uid, grp->gr_gid);

APPLICATION USAGE

       On  implementations  which  support symbolic links as directory entries rather than files,
       lchown() may fail.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       chown() , symlink() , the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <unistd.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2003  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by
       the  Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. 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.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .