When i try to create a file in LINUX using open() function, i get an error '-1' for the filename that contains extended character (ex: Björk.txt). Here the file contains a special character ö (ASCII 148)
I am using the below code:
char* szUnixPath
/home/user188/Output/Björk.txt
open(szUnixPath, locStyle, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH);
I always get a -1 error, and NO FILE is created.
As the OS encounters the ASCII 148, it throws an error.
The same function works perfectly fine if i use a tilde ~ (ASCII 126, example: Bj~rk.txt) or any other character below ASCII value 128.
can somebody explain why do i get the -1 error only for filename having special character ranging between 128-255 ?
I recommend just trying yourself to see what bytes this name contains.
Create the file in a directory, then run the following simple C program:
#include <dirent.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void)
{
/* Open directory */
DIR * currdir = opendir(".");
/* Iterate over files */
struct dirent * directory_entry = NULL;
while (NULL != (directory_entry = readdir(currdir)))
{
char * entry_name = directory_entry->d_name;
printf("Directory entry: %s\n", entry_name);
printf("Name bytes (len: %d):\n", strlen(entry_name));
for (size_t i = 0; i < strlen(entry_name); ++i)
{
printf("\tname[%d] = %d\n", i, entry_name[i]);
}
}
return 0;
}
We can easily see in the output that 'Björk' length is 6-bytes. And we can see these bytes values:
Directory entry: Björk
Name bytes (len: 6):
name[0] = 66
name[1] = 106
name[2] = -61
name[3] = -74
name[4] = 114
name[5] = 107
Filenames in Linux are generally specified in UTF-8, not CP437. The open is failing because the filename you're passing doesn't match the one in the OS.
Try opening this file instead: /home/user188/Output/Bj\xc3\xb6rk.txt. This is the special character encoded in UTF-8 as two bytes.
