The naming of at()s is a difficult matter
From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Sat Feb 11 2006 - 22:35:01 EST
I have noticed that the new ...at() system calls are named in what
appears to be a completely haphazard fashion. In Unix system calls,
an f- prefix means it operates on a file descriptor; the -at suffix (a
prefix would have been more consistent, but oh well) similarly
indicates it operates on a (directory fd, pathname) pair.
However, some system calls, in particular fchownat, futimesat,
fchmodat and faccessat add the f- prefix for what appears to be
absolutely no good reason. Logically, these system calls should be
named chownat, utimesat, chmodat, and accessat.
I understand some of this braindamage comes from Solaris, but some of
these calls do not. We should avoid it if at all possible, and I
would recommend at least introducing aliases with the sane names.
-hpa
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