On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:01:26AM -0400, Dale R. Worley wrote:
> open("/dev/stdout", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_EXCL, 0666) = -1 EEXIST (File exists)
> write(2, "Error: ", 18Error: ) = 18
> write(2, "Cannot open \"/dev/stdout\" to wri"..., 56Cannot open "/dev/stdout"
> to write keyboard description
> ) = 56
>
> The open() is done with the O_EXCL flag. Reading the manual page
> open(2), I see that O_EXCL requires that the open() call creates the
> file.
>
> It's not clear why xkbcomp has this behavior, but it seems likely that
> this is done for a specific reason. So you will have to ask whoever
> maintains it.
The obvious guess is that it's to "prevent you from accidentally
overwriting a file".
