openat() and other similar system calls suffixed "at" are supported for two reasons.
First, openat() allows an application to avoid race conditions that could occur when using open(2) to open files in directories other than the current working directory. These race conditions result from the fact that some component of the directory prefix given to open(2) could be changed in parallel with the call to open(2). Such races can be avoided by opening a file descriptor for the target directory, and then specifying that file descriptor as the dirfd argument of openat().
Second, openat() allows the implementation of a per-thread "current working directory", via file descriptor(s) maintained by the application. (This functionality can also be obtained by tricks based on the use of /proc/self/fd/dirfd, but less efficiently.)
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