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As a result of the influence of MS-DOS, file names of the form xxxxxxxx.xxx, where x denotes an alphanumeric character, are generally supported by modern systems. On some platforms, file names are case sensitive, and on other platforms, they are case insensitive. VU#439395 is an example of a vulnerability resulting from a failure to deal appropriately with case-sensitivity issues [VU#439395].

Noncompliant Code Example (File Name 1)

In this noncompliant code example, unsafe characters are used as part of a file name:

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int main(void) {
   char *file_name = "&#xBB;&#xA3;???&#xAB;";
   mode_t mode = S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH;

   int fd = open(file_name, O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_WRONLY, mode);
   if (fd == -1) {
      /* Handle error */
   }
}

An implementation is free to define its own mapping of the "nonsafe" characters. For example, when tested on a Red Hat Linux distribution, this noncompliant code example resulted in the following file name:

??????

Compliant Solution (File Name 1)

Use a descriptive file name containing only the subset of ASCII previously described:

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int main(void) {
   char *file_name = "name.ext";
   mode_t mode = S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH;

   int fd = open(file_name, O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_WRONLY, mode);
   if (fd == -1) {
      /* Handle error */
   }
}

Noncompliant Code Example (File Name 2)

This noncompliant code example is derived from FIO30-C. Exclude user input from format strings, except that a newline is removed on the assumption that fgets() will include it:

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No checks are performed on the file name to prevent troublesome characters. If an attacker knew this code was in a program used to create or rename files that would later be used in a script or automated process of some sort, he or she could choose particular characters in the output file name to confuse the later process for malicious purposes.

Compliant Solution (File Name 2)

In this compliant solution, the program rejects file names that violate the guidelines for selecting safe characters:

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