Is it better to use fchmod over chmod?

Question

Is using fchmod(int fildes, mode_t mode) a better idea than using chmod(const char * path, mode_t mode)?

Answer 1

It's pretty much identical. chmod will take ever so slightly little longer as it has to convert the path to an inode or filenode, whereas fchmod has the inode/filenode already looked up.

Of course, there are fewer error conditions which could occur with fchmod since the file is already known to exist, have permission for open, etc.