R devel - Jul 2018 - Bug in file.access on Windows when using network shares

Dear R-Devel,

I've run into an issue with a package (vcfR) that uses file.access to check
a file is readable before opening it. The issue is actually in base R
though. I've looked into the package code, and it calls file.access(path,
mode = 4). I've created a minimal working example of the code in winAccessW
from src/gnuwin32/extra.c, and the problem arises when GetFileSecurityW is
called on shared files under certain circumstances.

One situation I've seen it in are when a file is shared from a non-Windows
host (e.g. Linux), which is similar to the situation documented at
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/f57928d3-d89b-426d-a174-d06d97355afc/how-to-check-if-a-filefolder-is-writable-or-not?forum=windowssdk
.

The other situation arises when a file is cached offline by Windows Offline
files feature. The call to GetFileSecurityW works fine when the network is
up (and so the file is being accessed from the share), but fails when the
network is down and the file is being accessed from the offline files cache.

Is there any reason that there is a custom function here? Windows supports
the use of access (as is used on other OSes), although the ISO C++ _waccess
would be preferred. This seems to work well even in situations where the
current code does not.

BW

Nick

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Dear Nick,

thank you for your report. In general one cannot know reliably in 
advance whether reading a file will work, if nothing else, there are 
possible race conditions with other applications and/or the system (e.g. 
a service may lock the file, move it away temporarily, etc). The only 
correct way to handle errors is try the read and catch errors. Please 
note there is a disclaimer in ?file.access to this effect.

If you still want to report a bug in file.access, please provide an 
example that does not require a package, and provide more details (what 
do you think would be the correct behavior, etc). From looking at the 
code, when winAccessW/GetFileSecurityW fails to retrieve information 
about the file, file.access would signal an error, which seems to be a 
fine behavior for me. It is not surprising to me that in some cases 
(like working on a local copy of a file in a distributed file-system), 
the OS would not know whether a file is readable/writeable before trying 
out on/syncing the distributed version.

Best
Tomas

On 07/03/2018 01:11 AM, Nick Kennedy wrote:
> Dear R-Devel,
>
> I've run into an issue with a package (vcfR) that uses file.access to
check
> a file is readable before opening it. The issue is actually in base R
> though. I've looked into the package code, and it calls
file.access(path,
> mode = 4). I've created a minimal working example of the code in
winAccessW
> from src/gnuwin32/extra.c, and the problem arises when GetFileSecurityW is
> called on shared files under certain circumstances.
>
> One situation I've seen it in are when a file is shared from a
non-Windows
> host (e.g. Linux), which is similar to the situation documented at
>
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/f57928d3-d89b-426d-a174-d06d97355afc/how-to-check-if-a-filefolder-is-writable-or-not?forum=windowssdk
> .
>
> The other situation arises when a file is cached offline by Windows Offline
> files feature. The call to GetFileSecurityW works fine when the network is
> up (and so the file is being accessed from the share), but fails when the
> network is down and the file is being accessed from the offline files
cache.
>
> Is there any reason that there is a custom function here? Windows supports
> the use of access (as is used on other OSes), although the ISO C++ _waccess
> would be preferred. This seems to work well even in situations where the
> current code does not.
>
> BW
>
> Nick
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

Dear Tomas,

Thanks for your email. This can be easily reproduced if there is access to
a shared folder. I've reproduced this behaviour on both Windows 7 and
Windows 10.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Ensure Offline Files is turned on within Windows
2. Using Windows Explorer, browse to a folder shared on a network using a
UNC path, e.g. \\mypc\myshare\
3. Create a test file, e.g. test.txt
4. Within R, try the following:

file.access("//mypc/myshare/test.txt",0)
# Returns 0
file.access("//mypc/myshare/test.txt",4)
# Returns -1 if the share is on a non-Windows host, 0 if it is on a Windows
host

5. Right click on the file within Windows Explorer and ensure 'always
available offline' is checked.
6. Wait for the sync to take place.
7. Disconnect from the network.
8. Within R, try the same commands again

file.access("//mypc/myshare/test.txt",0)
# Returns 0
file.access("//mypc/myshare/test.txt",4)
# Returns -1 regardless of whether the original host was Windows or
non-Windows

In all cases the file is actually readable.

I've created my own version of winAccessW in extra.c at
https://github.com/NikNakk/r-source/commit/0a82f6d23b8a2ace44e43a28cb6eb923145a13c8

Almost all of the code in here can be replaced with a simple call to
_waccess, other than the check for executable. This seems to work as
expected. Since _waccess exists as a system call within Windows and has the
same syntax (other than wide characters) as access in POSIX, why not use it?

BW

Nick

On 3 July 2018 at 09:21, Tomas Kalibera <tomas.kalibera at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Dear Nick,
>
> thank you for your report. In general one cannot know reliably in advance
> whether reading a file will work, if nothing else, there are possible race
> conditions with other applications and/or the system (e.g. a service may
> lock the file, move it away temporarily, etc). The only correct way to
> handle errors is try the read and catch errors. Please note there is a
> disclaimer in ?file.access to this effect.
>
> If you still want to report a bug in file.access, please provide an
> example that does not require a package, and provide more details (what do
> you think would be the correct behavior, etc). From looking at the code,
> when winAccessW/GetFileSecurityW fails to retrieve information about the
> file, file.access would signal an error, which seems to be a fine behavior
> for me. It is not surprising to me that in some cases (like working on a
> local copy of a file in a distributed file-system), the OS would not know
> whether a file is readable/writeable before trying out on/syncing the
> distributed version.
>
> Best
> Tomas
>
>
> On 07/03/2018 01:11 AM, Nick Kennedy wrote:
>
>> Dear R-Devel,
>>
>> I've run into an issue with a package (vcfR) that uses file.access
to
>> check
>> a file is readable before opening it. The issue is actually in base R
>> though. I've looked into the package code, and it calls
file.access(path,
>> mode = 4). I've created a minimal working example of the code in
>> winAccessW
>> from src/gnuwin32/extra.c, and the problem arises when GetFileSecurityW
is
>> called on shared files under certain circumstances.
>>
>> One situation I've seen it in are when a file is shared from a
non-Windows
>> host (e.g. Linux), which is similar to the situation documented at
>> https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/f57
>> 928d3-d89b-426d-a174-d06d97355afc/how-to-check-if-a-
>> filefolder-is-writable-or-not?forum=windowssdk
>> .
>>
>> The other situation arises when a file is cached offline by Windows
>> Offline
>> files feature. The call to GetFileSecurityW works fine when the network
is
>> up (and so the file is being accessed from the share), but fails when
the
>> network is down and the file is being accessed from the offline files
>> cache.
>>
>> Is there any reason that there is a custom function here? Windows
supports
>> the use of access (as is used on other OSes), although the ISO C++
>> _waccess
>> would be preferred. This seems to work well even in situations where
the
>> current code does not.
>>
>> BW
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>
>
>
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