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After a couple of years and multiple LTS releases we received a report
that the behavior of O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT changed starting with v5.7.

On kernels prior to v5.7 combinations of O_DIRECTORY, O_CREAT, O_EXCL
had the following semantics:

(1) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
    * d doesn't exist:                create regular file
    * d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
    * d exists and is a directory:    EISDIR

(2) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL)
    * d doesn't exist:                create regular file
    * d exists and is a regular file: EEXIST
    * d exists and is a directory:    EEXIST

(3) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_EXCL)
    * d doesn't exist:                ENOENT
    * d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
    * d exists and is a directory:    open directory

On kernels since to v5.7 combinations of O_DIRECTORY, O_CREAT, O_EXCL
have the following semantics:

(1) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
    * d do...