explain_fchown_or_die(3)

💖 explain_fchown_or_die — bestie edition 💖

okay so real quick, the full title of this one is explain_fchown_or_die(3) and it lives in the Library Functions Manual, which is giving very much "section 3, we do libraries here" energy. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

explain_fchown_or_die — change ownership of a file and report errors

like, it changes who owns a file, and if it goes wrong it tells you and then dips. iconic behavior honestly 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <libexplain/fchown.h>
void explain_fchown_or_die(int fildes, int owner, int group);

look at her. three little ints and a dream 🌸

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the explain_fchown_or_die function is literally just here to call the fchown(2) system call for you. that's it, that's the job 🎀

but the way that it handles failure?? obsessed. if it fails, an explanation gets printed to stderr — and that explanation comes straight from explain_fchown(3), no cap — and then the process terminates by calling exit(EXIT_FAILURE). so yeah, it does not come back. she leaves. periodt 💀

this function is intended to be used in a fashion similar to the following example:

explain_fchown_or_die(fildes, owner, group);

now the arguments, one by one, no skips:

• fildes — the fildes, exactly as to be passed to the fchown(2) system call. same one, don't get creative 💜
• owner — the owner, exactly as to be passed to the fchown(2) system call. yes exactly like that ✨
• group — the group, exactly as to be passed to the fchown(2) system call. match it, bestie 🌈

Returns:

this function only returns on success. on failure, it prints an explanation and exits. so like... if you get a return value, congrats, it worked, main character moment 👑. if you don't get one, you don't exist anymore, so it's fine either way fr fr 🧚

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• fchown(2) — change ownership of a file
• explain_fchown(3) — explain fchown(2) errors
• exit(2) — terminate the calling process

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✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

this is libexplain version 1.4, and the copyright belongs to Copyright (C) 2008 Peter Miller. respecting the license, as one does 💖

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 go forth and chown responsibly — or at least, go forth and get a really good error message when you don't 💜

explain_fchown_or_die(3) — mwah, that's a wrap ⭐