access() ...is it standard

[Rick Burgess]

Is the routine "access(char *file_spec, int mode);" standard?  My VAX/VMS C
manual tells me it indicates existence and protection of files.  One of the
other programmers on campus told me of its existence on a compiler on the
dynix system here, but I was not able to find the routine in the 2nd edition
of K&R C Book.

If this is not a standard, can anyone recommend a standard way of doing this
or a recommended clear good right way to do it.

Also:

Does anyone wish to recommend any good supplement to ANSI C besides K&R 2nd
edition?  (if so please recommend away)

Also:

Neither was I able to find the "symbolic constants" (possibly VAX/VMSpeak) such
as EPERM, ENOENT, ESRCH, EINTR, EIO,... which according to my VAX/VMS C manual
reside in errno.h.  Are these Ansi standard, or at least common?