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IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)utimes.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: September 30 2020 $ .Dt UTIMES 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm utimes , .Nm futimes , .Nm utimensat , .Nm futimens .Nd set file access and modification times .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/time.h .Ft int .Fn utimes "const char *path" "const struct timeval times[2]" .Ft int .Fn futimes "int fd" "const struct timeval times[2]" .In sys/stat.h .In fcntl.h .Ft int .Fn utimensat "int fd" "const char *path" "const struct timespec times[2]" "int flag" .Ft int .Fn futimens "int fd" "const struct timespec times[2]" .Sh DESCRIPTION The access and modification times of the file named by .Fa path or referenced by .Fa fd are changed as specified by the argument .Fa times . .Pp If .Fa times is .Dv NULL , the access and modification times are set to the current time. The caller must be the owner of the file, have permission to write the file, or be the superuser. .Pp If .Fa times is non-null, it is assumed to point to an array of two timeval structures. The access time is set to the value of the first element, and the modification time is set to the value of the second element. The caller must be the owner of the file or be the superuser. .Pp In either case, the file status change time is set to the current time. .Pp The .Fn utimensat and .Fn futimens are equivalent to .Fn utimes and .Fn futimes , respectively, with the following differences. .Pp Both .Fn utimensat and .Fn futimens take two timespec values instead of two timeval values. Further, either of the .Fa tv_nsec fields can be set to one of the following special values defined in .In sys/stat.h , in which case the value of .Fa tv_sec is ignored: .Pp .Bl -tag -width UTIME_OMIT -offset indent -compact .It Dv UTIME_NOW Set the respective timestamp to the greatest value supported that is not greater than the current time. .It Dv UTIME_OMIT Do not change the respective timestamp. .El .Pp Additionally, if the .Fa path argument to .Fn utimensat specifies a relative path, the file whose timestamps are changed is determined relative to the directory associated with file descriptor .Fa fd instead of the current working directory. .Pp If .Fn utimensat is passed the special value .Dv AT_FDCWD (defined in .In fcntl.h ) in the .Fa fd parameter, the current working directory is used. .Pp The .Fa flag argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following values: .Pp .Bl -tag -width AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW -offset indent -compact .It Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW If .Fa path names a symbolic link, then the timestamps of the symbolic link are changed. .El .Sh RETURN VALUES .Rv -std .Sh ERRORS .Fn utimes and .Fn utimensat will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix; or the .Fa times argument is .Dv NULL and the effective user ID of the process does not match the owner of the file, and is not the superuser, and write access is denied. .It Bq Er EFAULT .Fa path or .Fa times points outside the process's allocated address space. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading or writing the affected inode. .It Bq Er ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG A component of a pathname exceeded .Dv NAME_MAX characters, or an entire pathname (including the terminating NUL) exceeded .Dv PATH_MAX bytes. .It Bq Er ENOENT The named file does not exist. .It Bq Er ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. .It Bq Er EPERM The .Fa times argument is not .Dv NULL and the calling process's effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and is not the superuser. .It Bq Er EROFS The file system containing the file is mounted read-only. .El .Pp Additionally, .Fn utimensat will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL The value of the .Fa flag argument was neither zero nor .Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW . .It Bq Er EBADF The .Fa path argument specifies a relative path and the .Fa fd argument is neither .Dv AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor. .It Bq Er ENOTDIR The .Fa path argument specifies a relative path and the .Fa fd argument is a valid file descriptor but it does not reference a directory. .It Bq Er EACCES The .Fa path argument specifies a relative path but search permission is denied for the directory which the .Fa fd file descriptor references. .El .Pp .Fn futimes and .Fn futimens will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBADF .Fa fd does not refer to a valid descriptor. .It Bq Er EACCES The .Fa times argument is .Dv NULL and the effective user ID of the process does not match the owner of the file, and is not the superuser, and write access is denied. .It Bq Er EFAULT .Fa times points outside the process's allocated address space. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading or writing the affected inode. .It Bq Er EPERM The .Fa times argument is not .Dv NULL and the calling process's effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and is not the superuser. .It Bq Er EROFS The file system containing the file is mounted read-only. .El .Pp .Fn utimes and .Fn futimes will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL Either of the .Fa times arguments specified a microsecond value less than zero or greater than or equal to 1 million, or a second value less than zero. .El .Pp .Fn utimesat and .Fn futimens will fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL Either of the .Fa times argument specified a nanosecond value less than zero or greater than or equal to 1000 million, or a second value less than zero. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr clock_gettime 2 , .Xr stat 2 , .Xr utime 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn utimes , .Fn utimensat , and .Fn futimens functions conform to .St -p1003.1-2008 . .Sh HISTORY The predecessors of .Fn utimes were .Fn smdate in .At v1 , .Fn mdate in .At v3 , and .Fn utime in .At v7 ; the latter first supported the concept of an access time in addition to the modification time. .Pp The .Fn utimes function call appeared in .Bx 4.2 . The .Fn futimes function call appeared in .Nx 1.2 . The .Fn utimensat and .Fn futimens function calls appeared in .Ox 5.0 . .Sh CAVEATS Some filesystems, such as FAT, use the same timestamp for both modification and file status change; on those filesystems, the file status change timestamp will not be updated if .Dv UTIME_OMIT is specified for the modification timestamp argument. Similarly, on NFS the file status change timestamp will not be updated if .Dv UTIME_OMIT is specified for both the access and the modification timestamp arguments.