.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\"
.\"	@(#)chflags.2	8.3 (Berkeley) 05/02/95
.\"
.Dd 
.Dt CHFLAGS 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm chflags ,
.Nm fchflags
.Nd set file flags
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <sys/stat.h>
.Fd #include <unistd.h>
.Ft int
.Fn chflags "const char *path"  "u_long flags"
.Ft int
.Fn fchflags "int fd" "u_long flags"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The file whose name
is given by
.Fa path
or referenced by the descriptor
.Fa fd
has its flags changed to
.Fa flags .
.Pp
The flags specified are formed by
.Em or Ns 'ing
the following values
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "SF_IMMUTABLE" -compact -offset indent
.It UF_NODUMP
Do not dump the file.
.It UF_IMMUTABLE
The file may not be changed.
.It UF_APPEND
The file may only be appended to.
.It UF_OPAQUE
The directory is opaque when viewed through a union stack.
.\".It ARCHIVED
.\"File is archived.
.It SF_IMMUTABLE
The file may not be changed.
.It SF_APPEND
The file may only be appended to.
.El
.Pp
The
.Dq UF_IMMUTABLE
and
.Dq UF_APPEND
flags may be set or unset by either the owner of a file or the super-user.
.Pp
The
.Dq SF_IMMUTABLE
and
.Dq SF_APPEND
flags may only be set or unset by the super-user.
Attempts by the non-super-user to set the super-user only flags
are silently ignored.
These flags may be set at any time, but normally may only be unset when
the system is in single-user mode.
(See
.Xr init 8
for details.)
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.
Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate the error.
.Sh ERRORS
.Fn Chflags
will fail it:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
.It Bq Er ENOENT
The named file does not exist.
.It Bq Er EACCES
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
.It Bq Er ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
.It Bq Er EPERM
The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and
the effective user ID is not the super-user.
.It Bq Er EROFS
The named file resides on a read-only file system.
.It Bq Er EFAULT
.Fa Path
points outside the process's allocated address space.
.It Bq Er EIO
An
.Tn I/O
error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
.El
.Pp
.Fn Fchflags
will fail if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EBADF
The descriptor is not valid.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Fa Fd
refers to a socket, not to a file.
.It Bq Er EPERM
The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and
the effective user ID is not the super-user.
.It Bq Er EROFS
The file resides on a read-only file system.
.It Bq Er EIO
An
.Tn I/O
error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chflags 1 ,
.Xr init 8 ,
.Xr mount_union 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm chflags
and
.Nm fchflags
functions first appeared in 4.4BSD.