Files
carbon 0545e9dc6d init version 2024-05-07
commit d1edce71135cc6d98c0a4b5729774542b676e769
Author: sophgo-forum-service <forum_service@sophgo.com>
Date:   Fri Mar 15 16:07:33 2024 +0800

    [fix] recommend using ssh method to clone repo.
    [fix] fix sensor driver repo branch name.
2024-05-07 19:36:36 +08:00

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This is libc.info, produced by makeinfo version 5.2 from libc.texinfo.
This file documents the GNU C Library.
This is The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for version 2.23.
Copyright © 19932016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being “Free Software Needs Free Documentation” and
“GNU Lesser General Public License”, the Front-Cover texts being “A GNU
Manual”, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation
License".
(a) The FSFs Back-Cover Text is: “You have the freedom to copy and
modify this GNU manual. Buying copies from the FSF supports it in
developing GNU and promoting software freedom.”
INFO-DIR-SECTION Software libraries
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Libc: (libc). C library.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
INFO-DIR-SECTION GNU C library functions and macros
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* ALTWERASE: (libc)Local Modes.
* ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN: (libc)Argp Parser Functions.
* ARG_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* BC_BASE_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* BC_DIM_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* BC_SCALE_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* BC_STRING_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* BRKINT: (libc)Input Modes.
* BUFSIZ: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* CCTS_OFLOW: (libc)Control Modes.
* CHILD_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* CIGNORE: (libc)Control Modes.
* CLK_TCK: (libc)Processor Time.
* CLOCAL: (libc)Control Modes.
* CLOCKS_PER_SEC: (libc)CPU Time.
* COLL_WEIGHTS_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* CPU_CLR: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* CPU_ISSET: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* CPU_SET: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* CPU_SETSIZE: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* CPU_ZERO: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* CREAD: (libc)Control Modes.
* CRTS_IFLOW: (libc)Control Modes.
* CS5: (libc)Control Modes.
* CS6: (libc)Control Modes.
* CS7: (libc)Control Modes.
* CS8: (libc)Control Modes.
* CSIZE: (libc)Control Modes.
* CSTOPB: (libc)Control Modes.
* DES_FAILED: (libc)DES Encryption.
* DTTOIF: (libc)Directory Entries.
* E2BIG: (libc)Error Codes.
* EACCES: (libc)Error Codes.
* EADDRINUSE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EADDRNOTAVAIL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EADV: (libc)Error Codes.
* EAFNOSUPPORT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EAGAIN: (libc)Error Codes.
* EALREADY: (libc)Error Codes.
* EAUTH: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBACKGROUND: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADF: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADFD: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADMSG: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADR: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADRPC: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADRQC: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBADSLT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBFONT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EBUSY: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECANCELED: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECHILD: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECHO: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHOCTL: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHOE: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHOK: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHOKE: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHONL: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHOPRT: (libc)Local Modes.
* ECHRNG: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECOMM: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECONNABORTED: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECONNREFUSED: (libc)Error Codes.
* ECONNRESET: (libc)Error Codes.
* ED: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDEADLK: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDEADLOCK: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDESTADDRREQ: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDIED: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDOM: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDOTDOT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EDQUOT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EEXIST: (libc)Error Codes.
* EFAULT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EFBIG: (libc)Error Codes.
* EFTYPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EGRATUITOUS: (libc)Error Codes.
* EGREGIOUS: (libc)Error Codes.
* EHOSTDOWN: (libc)Error Codes.
* EHOSTUNREACH: (libc)Error Codes.
* EHWPOISON: (libc)Error Codes.
* EIDRM: (libc)Error Codes.
* EIEIO: (libc)Error Codes.
* EILSEQ: (libc)Error Codes.
* EINPROGRESS: (libc)Error Codes.
* EINTR: (libc)Error Codes.
* EINVAL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EIO: (libc)Error Codes.
* EISCONN: (libc)Error Codes.
* EISDIR: (libc)Error Codes.
* EISNAM: (libc)Error Codes.
* EKEYEXPIRED: (libc)Error Codes.
* EKEYREJECTED: (libc)Error Codes.
* EKEYREVOKED: (libc)Error Codes.
* EL2HLT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EL2NSYNC: (libc)Error Codes.
* EL3HLT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EL3RST: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELIBACC: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELIBBAD: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELIBEXEC: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELIBMAX: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELIBSCN: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELNRNG: (libc)Error Codes.
* ELOOP: (libc)Error Codes.
* EMEDIUMTYPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EMFILE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EMLINK: (libc)Error Codes.
* EMSGSIZE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EMULTIHOP: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENAMETOOLONG: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENAVAIL: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENEEDAUTH: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENETDOWN: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENETRESET: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENETUNREACH: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENFILE: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOANO: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOBUFS: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOCSI: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENODATA: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENODEV: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOENT: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOEXEC: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOKEY: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOLCK: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOLINK: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOMEDIUM: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOMEM: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOMSG: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENONET: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOPKG: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOPROTOOPT: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOSPC: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOSR: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOSTR: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOSYS: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTBLK: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTCONN: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTDIR: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTEMPTY: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTNAM: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTRECOVERABLE: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTSOCK: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTSUP: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTTY: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENOTUNIQ: (libc)Error Codes.
* ENXIO: (libc)Error Codes.
* EOF: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* EOPNOTSUPP: (libc)Error Codes.
* EOVERFLOW: (libc)Error Codes.
* EOWNERDEAD: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPERM: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPFNOSUPPORT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPIPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROCLIM: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROCUNAVAIL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROGMISMATCH: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROGUNAVAIL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROTO: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROTONOSUPPORT: (libc)Error Codes.
* EPROTOTYPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EQUIV_CLASS_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* ERANGE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EREMCHG: (libc)Error Codes.
* EREMOTE: (libc)Error Codes.
* EREMOTEIO: (libc)Error Codes.
* ERESTART: (libc)Error Codes.
* ERFKILL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EROFS: (libc)Error Codes.
* ERPCMISMATCH: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESHUTDOWN: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESOCKTNOSUPPORT: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESPIPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESRCH: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESRMNT: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESTALE: (libc)Error Codes.
* ESTRPIPE: (libc)Error Codes.
* ETIME: (libc)Error Codes.
* ETIMEDOUT: (libc)Error Codes.
* ETOOMANYREFS: (libc)Error Codes.
* ETXTBSY: (libc)Error Codes.
* EUCLEAN: (libc)Error Codes.
* EUNATCH: (libc)Error Codes.
* EUSERS: (libc)Error Codes.
* EWOULDBLOCK: (libc)Error Codes.
* EXDEV: (libc)Error Codes.
* EXFULL: (libc)Error Codes.
* EXIT_FAILURE: (libc)Exit Status.
* EXIT_SUCCESS: (libc)Exit Status.
* EXPR_NEST_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* FD_CLOEXEC: (libc)Descriptor Flags.
* FD_CLR: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* FD_ISSET: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* FD_SET: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* FD_SETSIZE: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* FD_ZERO: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* FILENAME_MAX: (libc)Limits for Files.
* FLUSHO: (libc)Local Modes.
* FOPEN_MAX: (libc)Opening Streams.
* FP_ILOGB0: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* FP_ILOGBNAN: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* F_DUPFD: (libc)Duplicating Descriptors.
* F_GETFD: (libc)Descriptor Flags.
* F_GETFL: (libc)Getting File Status Flags.
* F_GETLK: (libc)File Locks.
* F_GETOWN: (libc)Interrupt Input.
* F_OFD_GETLK: (libc)Open File Description Locks.
* F_OFD_SETLK: (libc)Open File Description Locks.
* F_OFD_SETLKW: (libc)Open File Description Locks.
* F_OK: (libc)Testing File Access.
* F_SETFD: (libc)Descriptor Flags.
* F_SETFL: (libc)Getting File Status Flags.
* F_SETLK: (libc)File Locks.
* F_SETLKW: (libc)File Locks.
* F_SETOWN: (libc)Interrupt Input.
* HUGE_VAL: (libc)Math Error Reporting.
* HUGE_VALF: (libc)Math Error Reporting.
* HUGE_VALL: (libc)Math Error Reporting.
* HUPCL: (libc)Control Modes.
* I: (libc)Complex Numbers.
* ICANON: (libc)Local Modes.
* ICRNL: (libc)Input Modes.
* IEXTEN: (libc)Local Modes.
* IFNAMSIZ: (libc)Interface Naming.
* IFTODT: (libc)Directory Entries.
* IGNBRK: (libc)Input Modes.
* IGNCR: (libc)Input Modes.
* IGNPAR: (libc)Input Modes.
* IMAXBEL: (libc)Input Modes.
* INADDR_ANY: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* INADDR_BROADCAST: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* INADDR_LOOPBACK: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* INADDR_NONE: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* INFINITY: (libc)Infinity and NaN.
* INLCR: (libc)Input Modes.
* INPCK: (libc)Input Modes.
* IPPORT_RESERVED: (libc)Ports.
* IPPORT_USERRESERVED: (libc)Ports.
* ISIG: (libc)Local Modes.
* ISTRIP: (libc)Input Modes.
* IXANY: (libc)Input Modes.
* IXOFF: (libc)Input Modes.
* IXON: (libc)Input Modes.
* LINE_MAX: (libc)Utility Limits.
* LINK_MAX: (libc)Limits for Files.
* L_ctermid: (libc)Identifying the Terminal.
* L_cuserid: (libc)Who Logged In.
* L_tmpnam: (libc)Temporary Files.
* MAXNAMLEN: (libc)Limits for Files.
* MAXSYMLINKS: (libc)Symbolic Links.
* MAX_CANON: (libc)Limits for Files.
* MAX_INPUT: (libc)Limits for Files.
* MB_CUR_MAX: (libc)Selecting the Conversion.
* MB_LEN_MAX: (libc)Selecting the Conversion.
* MDMBUF: (libc)Control Modes.
* MSG_DONTROUTE: (libc)Socket Data Options.
* MSG_OOB: (libc)Socket Data Options.
* MSG_PEEK: (libc)Socket Data Options.
* NAME_MAX: (libc)Limits for Files.
* NAN: (libc)Infinity and NaN.
* NCCS: (libc)Mode Data Types.
* NGROUPS_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* NOFLSH: (libc)Local Modes.
* NOKERNINFO: (libc)Local Modes.
* NSIG: (libc)Standard Signals.
* NULL: (libc)Null Pointer Constant.
* ONLCR: (libc)Output Modes.
* ONOEOT: (libc)Output Modes.
* OPEN_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* OPOST: (libc)Output Modes.
* OXTABS: (libc)Output Modes.
* O_ACCMODE: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_APPEND: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_ASYNC: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_CREAT: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_EXCL: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_EXEC: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_EXLOCK: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_FSYNC: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_IGNORE_CTTY: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_NDELAY: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_NOATIME: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_NOCTTY: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_NOLINK: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_NONBLOCK: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_NONBLOCK: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_NOTRANS: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_RDONLY: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_RDWR: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_READ: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_SHLOCK: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_SYNC: (libc)Operating Modes.
* O_TRUNC: (libc)Open-time Flags.
* O_WRITE: (libc)Access Modes.
* O_WRONLY: (libc)Access Modes.
* PARENB: (libc)Control Modes.
* PARMRK: (libc)Input Modes.
* PARODD: (libc)Control Modes.
* PATH_MAX: (libc)Limits for Files.
* PA_FLAG_MASK: (libc)Parsing a Template String.
* PENDIN: (libc)Local Modes.
* PF_FILE: (libc)Local Namespace Details.
* PF_INET6: (libc)Internet Namespace.
* PF_INET: (libc)Internet Namespace.
* PF_LOCAL: (libc)Local Namespace Details.
* PF_UNIX: (libc)Local Namespace Details.
* PIPE_BUF: (libc)Limits for Files.
* P_tmpdir: (libc)Temporary Files.
* RAND_MAX: (libc)ISO Random.
* RE_DUP_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* RLIM_INFINITY: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* R_OK: (libc)Testing File Access.
* SA_NOCLDSTOP: (libc)Flags for Sigaction.
* SA_ONSTACK: (libc)Flags for Sigaction.
* SA_RESTART: (libc)Flags for Sigaction.
* SEEK_CUR: (libc)File Positioning.
* SEEK_END: (libc)File Positioning.
* SEEK_SET: (libc)File Positioning.
* SIGABRT: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGALRM: (libc)Alarm Signals.
* SIGBUS: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGCHLD: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGCLD: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGCONT: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGEMT: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGFPE: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGHUP: (libc)Termination Signals.
* SIGILL: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGINFO: (libc)Miscellaneous Signals.
* SIGINT: (libc)Termination Signals.
* SIGIO: (libc)Asynchronous I/O Signals.
* SIGIOT: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGKILL: (libc)Termination Signals.
* SIGLOST: (libc)Operation Error Signals.
* SIGPIPE: (libc)Operation Error Signals.
* SIGPOLL: (libc)Asynchronous I/O Signals.
* SIGPROF: (libc)Alarm Signals.
* SIGQUIT: (libc)Termination Signals.
* SIGSEGV: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGSTOP: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGSYS: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGTERM: (libc)Termination Signals.
* SIGTRAP: (libc)Program Error Signals.
* SIGTSTP: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGTTIN: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGTTOU: (libc)Job Control Signals.
* SIGURG: (libc)Asynchronous I/O Signals.
* SIGUSR1: (libc)Miscellaneous Signals.
* SIGUSR2: (libc)Miscellaneous Signals.
* SIGVTALRM: (libc)Alarm Signals.
* SIGWINCH: (libc)Miscellaneous Signals.
* SIGXCPU: (libc)Operation Error Signals.
* SIGXFSZ: (libc)Operation Error Signals.
* SIG_ERR: (libc)Basic Signal Handling.
* SOCK_DGRAM: (libc)Communication Styles.
* SOCK_RAW: (libc)Communication Styles.
* SOCK_RDM: (libc)Communication Styles.
* SOCK_SEQPACKET: (libc)Communication Styles.
* SOCK_STREAM: (libc)Communication Styles.
* SOL_SOCKET: (libc)Socket-Level Options.
* SSIZE_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* STREAM_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* SUN_LEN: (libc)Local Namespace Details.
* S_IFMT: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISBLK: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISCHR: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISDIR: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISFIFO: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISLNK: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISREG: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_ISSOCK: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_TYPEISMQ: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_TYPEISSEM: (libc)Testing File Type.
* S_TYPEISSHM: (libc)Testing File Type.
* TMP_MAX: (libc)Temporary Files.
* TOSTOP: (libc)Local Modes.
* TZNAME_MAX: (libc)General Limits.
* VDISCARD: (libc)Other Special.
* VDSUSP: (libc)Signal Characters.
* VEOF: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VEOL2: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VEOL: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VERASE: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VINTR: (libc)Signal Characters.
* VKILL: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VLNEXT: (libc)Other Special.
* VMIN: (libc)Noncanonical Input.
* VQUIT: (libc)Signal Characters.
* VREPRINT: (libc)Editing Characters.
* VSTART: (libc)Start/Stop Characters.
* VSTATUS: (libc)Other Special.
* VSTOP: (libc)Start/Stop Characters.
* VSUSP: (libc)Signal Characters.
* VTIME: (libc)Noncanonical Input.
* VWERASE: (libc)Editing Characters.
* WCHAR_MAX: (libc)Extended Char Intro.
* WCHAR_MIN: (libc)Extended Char Intro.
* WCOREDUMP: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WEOF: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* WEOF: (libc)Extended Char Intro.
* WEXITSTATUS: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WIFEXITED: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WIFSIGNALED: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WIFSTOPPED: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WSTOPSIG: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* WTERMSIG: (libc)Process Completion Status.
* W_OK: (libc)Testing File Access.
* X_OK: (libc)Testing File Access.
* _Complex_I: (libc)Complex Numbers.
* _Exit: (libc)Termination Internals.
* _IOFBF: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* _IOLBF: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* _IONBF: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* _Imaginary_I: (libc)Complex Numbers.
* _PATH_UTMP: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* _PATH_WTMP: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* _POSIX2_C_DEV: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX2_C_VERSION: (libc)Version Supported.
* _POSIX2_FORT_DEV: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX2_FORT_RUN: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX2_LOCALEDEF: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX2_SW_DEV: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED: (libc)Options for Files.
* _POSIX_JOB_CONTROL: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX_NO_TRUNC: (libc)Options for Files.
* _POSIX_SAVED_IDS: (libc)System Options.
* _POSIX_VDISABLE: (libc)Options for Files.
* _POSIX_VERSION: (libc)Version Supported.
* __fbufsize: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* __flbf: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* __fpending: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* __fpurge: (libc)Flushing Buffers.
* __freadable: (libc)Opening Streams.
* __freading: (libc)Opening Streams.
* __fsetlocking: (libc)Streams and Threads.
* __fwritable: (libc)Opening Streams.
* __fwriting: (libc)Opening Streams.
* __gconv_end_fct: (libc)glibc iconv Implementation.
* __gconv_fct: (libc)glibc iconv Implementation.
* __gconv_init_fct: (libc)glibc iconv Implementation.
* __ppc_get_timebase: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_get_timebase_freq: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_mdoio: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_mdoom: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_set_ppr_low: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_set_ppr_med: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_set_ppr_med_high: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_set_ppr_med_low: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_set_ppr_very_low: (libc)PowerPC.
* __ppc_yield: (libc)PowerPC.
* __va_copy: (libc)Argument Macros.
* _exit: (libc)Termination Internals.
* _flushlbf: (libc)Flushing Buffers.
* _tolower: (libc)Case Conversion.
* _toupper: (libc)Case Conversion.
* a64l: (libc)Encode Binary Data.
* abort: (libc)Aborting a Program.
* abs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* accept: (libc)Accepting Connections.
* access: (libc)Testing File Access.
* acos: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* acosf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* acosh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* acoshf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* acoshl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* acosl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* addmntent: (libc)mtab.
* addseverity: (libc)Adding Severity Classes.
* adjtime: (libc)High-Resolution Calendar.
* adjtimex: (libc)High-Resolution Calendar.
* aio_cancel64: (libc)Cancel AIO Operations.
* aio_cancel: (libc)Cancel AIO Operations.
* aio_error64: (libc)Status of AIO Operations.
* aio_error: (libc)Status of AIO Operations.
* aio_fsync64: (libc)Synchronizing AIO Operations.
* aio_fsync: (libc)Synchronizing AIO Operations.
* aio_init: (libc)Configuration of AIO.
* aio_read64: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* aio_read: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* aio_return64: (libc)Status of AIO Operations.
* aio_return: (libc)Status of AIO Operations.
* aio_suspend64: (libc)Synchronizing AIO Operations.
* aio_suspend: (libc)Synchronizing AIO Operations.
* aio_write64: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* aio_write: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* alarm: (libc)Setting an Alarm.
* aligned_alloc: (libc)Aligned Memory Blocks.
* alloca: (libc)Variable Size Automatic.
* alphasort64: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* alphasort: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* argp_error: (libc)Argp Helper Functions.
* argp_failure: (libc)Argp Helper Functions.
* argp_help: (libc)Argp Help.
* argp_parse: (libc)Argp.
* argp_state_help: (libc)Argp Helper Functions.
* argp_usage: (libc)Argp Helper Functions.
* argz_add: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_add_sep: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_append: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_count: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_create: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_create_sep: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_delete: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_extract: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_insert: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_next: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_replace: (libc)Argz Functions.
* argz_stringify: (libc)Argz Functions.
* asctime: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* asctime_r: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* asin: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* asinf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* asinh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* asinhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* asinhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* asinl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* asprintf: (libc)Dynamic Output.
* assert: (libc)Consistency Checking.
* assert_perror: (libc)Consistency Checking.
* atan2: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atan2f: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atan2l: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atan: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atanf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atanh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* atanhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* atanhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* atanl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* atexit: (libc)Cleanups on Exit.
* atof: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* atoi: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* atol: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* atoll: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* backtrace: (libc)Backtraces.
* backtrace_symbols: (libc)Backtraces.
* backtrace_symbols_fd: (libc)Backtraces.
* basename: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* basename: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* bcmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* bcopy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* bind: (libc)Setting Address.
* bind_textdomain_codeset: (libc)Charset conversion in gettext.
* bindtextdomain: (libc)Locating gettext catalog.
* brk: (libc)Resizing the Data Segment.
* bsearch: (libc)Array Search Function.
* btowc: (libc)Converting a Character.
* bzero: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* cabs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* cabsf: (libc)Absolute Value.
* cabsl: (libc)Absolute Value.
* cacos: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* cacosf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* cacosh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* cacoshf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* cacoshl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* cacosl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* calloc: (libc)Allocating Cleared Space.
* canonicalize_file_name: (libc)Symbolic Links.
* carg: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cargf: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cargl: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* casin: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* casinf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* casinh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* casinhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* casinhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* casinl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* catan: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* catanf: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* catanh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* catanhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* catanhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* catanl: (libc)Inverse Trig Functions.
* catclose: (libc)The catgets Functions.
* catgets: (libc)The catgets Functions.
* catopen: (libc)The catgets Functions.
* cbc_crypt: (libc)DES Encryption.
* cbrt: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cbrtf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cbrtl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* ccos: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ccosf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ccosh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ccoshf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ccoshl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ccosl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ceil: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* ceilf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* ceill: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* cexp: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cexpf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cexpl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cfgetispeed: (libc)Line Speed.
* cfgetospeed: (libc)Line Speed.
* cfmakeraw: (libc)Noncanonical Input.
* cfree: (libc)Freeing after Malloc.
* cfsetispeed: (libc)Line Speed.
* cfsetospeed: (libc)Line Speed.
* cfsetspeed: (libc)Line Speed.
* chdir: (libc)Working Directory.
* chmod: (libc)Setting Permissions.
* chown: (libc)File Owner.
* cimag: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cimagf: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cimagl: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* clearenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* clearerr: (libc)Error Recovery.
* clearerr_unlocked: (libc)Error Recovery.
* clock: (libc)CPU Time.
* clog10: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* clog10f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* clog10l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* clog: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* clogf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* clogl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* close: (libc)Opening and Closing Files.
* closedir: (libc)Reading/Closing Directory.
* closelog: (libc)closelog.
* confstr: (libc)String Parameters.
* conj: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* conjf: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* conjl: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* connect: (libc)Connecting.
* copysign: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* copysignf: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* copysignl: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* cos: (libc)Trig Functions.
* cosf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* cosh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* coshf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* coshl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* cosl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* cpow: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cpowf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cpowl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* cproj: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cprojf: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* cprojl: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* creal: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* crealf: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* creall: (libc)Operations on Complex.
* creat64: (libc)Opening and Closing Files.
* creat: (libc)Opening and Closing Files.
* crypt: (libc)crypt.
* crypt_r: (libc)crypt.
* csin: (libc)Trig Functions.
* csinf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* csinh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* csinhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* csinhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* csinl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* csqrt: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* csqrtf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* csqrtl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* ctan: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ctanf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ctanh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ctanhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ctanhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* ctanl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* ctermid: (libc)Identifying the Terminal.
* ctime: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* ctime_r: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* cuserid: (libc)Who Logged In.
* dcgettext: (libc)Translation with gettext.
* dcngettext: (libc)Advanced gettext functions.
* des_setparity: (libc)DES Encryption.
* dgettext: (libc)Translation with gettext.
* difftime: (libc)Elapsed Time.
* dirfd: (libc)Opening a Directory.
* dirname: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* div: (libc)Integer Division.
* dngettext: (libc)Advanced gettext functions.
* drand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* drand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* drem: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* dremf: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* dreml: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* dup2: (libc)Duplicating Descriptors.
* dup: (libc)Duplicating Descriptors.
* ecb_crypt: (libc)DES Encryption.
* ecvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* ecvt_r: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* encrypt: (libc)DES Encryption.
* encrypt_r: (libc)DES Encryption.
* endfsent: (libc)fstab.
* endgrent: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* endhostent: (libc)Host Names.
* endmntent: (libc)mtab.
* endnetent: (libc)Networks Database.
* endnetgrent: (libc)Lookup Netgroup.
* endprotoent: (libc)Protocols Database.
* endpwent: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* endservent: (libc)Services Database.
* endutent: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* endutxent: (libc)XPG Functions.
* envz_add: (libc)Envz Functions.
* envz_entry: (libc)Envz Functions.
* envz_get: (libc)Envz Functions.
* envz_merge: (libc)Envz Functions.
* envz_remove: (libc)Envz Functions.
* envz_strip: (libc)Envz Functions.
* erand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* erand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* erf: (libc)Special Functions.
* erfc: (libc)Special Functions.
* erfcf: (libc)Special Functions.
* erfcl: (libc)Special Functions.
* erff: (libc)Special Functions.
* erfl: (libc)Special Functions.
* err: (libc)Error Messages.
* errno: (libc)Checking for Errors.
* error: (libc)Error Messages.
* error_at_line: (libc)Error Messages.
* errx: (libc)Error Messages.
* execl: (libc)Executing a File.
* execle: (libc)Executing a File.
* execlp: (libc)Executing a File.
* execv: (libc)Executing a File.
* execve: (libc)Executing a File.
* execvp: (libc)Executing a File.
* exit: (libc)Normal Termination.
* exp10: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp10f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp10l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp2: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp2f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp2l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* exp: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* expf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* expl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* expm1: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* expm1f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* expm1l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* fabs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* fabsf: (libc)Absolute Value.
* fabsl: (libc)Absolute Value.
* fchdir: (libc)Working Directory.
* fchmod: (libc)Setting Permissions.
* fchown: (libc)File Owner.
* fclose: (libc)Closing Streams.
* fcloseall: (libc)Closing Streams.
* fcntl: (libc)Control Operations.
* fcvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* fcvt_r: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* fdatasync: (libc)Synchronizing I/O.
* fdim: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fdimf: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fdiml: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fdopen: (libc)Descriptors and Streams.
* fdopendir: (libc)Opening a Directory.
* feclearexcept: (libc)Status bit operations.
* fedisableexcept: (libc)Control Functions.
* feenableexcept: (libc)Control Functions.
* fegetenv: (libc)Control Functions.
* fegetexcept: (libc)Control Functions.
* fegetexceptflag: (libc)Status bit operations.
* fegetround: (libc)Rounding.
* feholdexcept: (libc)Control Functions.
* feof: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* feof_unlocked: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* feraiseexcept: (libc)Status bit operations.
* ferror: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* ferror_unlocked: (libc)EOF and Errors.
* fesetenv: (libc)Control Functions.
* fesetexceptflag: (libc)Status bit operations.
* fesetround: (libc)Rounding.
* fetestexcept: (libc)Status bit operations.
* feupdateenv: (libc)Control Functions.
* fflush: (libc)Flushing Buffers.
* fflush_unlocked: (libc)Flushing Buffers.
* fgetc: (libc)Character Input.
* fgetc_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* fgetgrent: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* fgetgrent_r: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* fgetpos64: (libc)Portable Positioning.
* fgetpos: (libc)Portable Positioning.
* fgetpwent: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* fgetpwent_r: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* fgets: (libc)Line Input.
* fgets_unlocked: (libc)Line Input.
* fgetwc: (libc)Character Input.
* fgetwc_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* fgetws: (libc)Line Input.
* fgetws_unlocked: (libc)Line Input.
* fileno: (libc)Descriptors and Streams.
* fileno_unlocked: (libc)Descriptors and Streams.
* finite: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* finitef: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* finitel: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* flockfile: (libc)Streams and Threads.
* floor: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* floorf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* floorl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* fma: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmaf: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmal: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmax: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmaxf: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmaxl: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmemopen: (libc)String Streams.
* fmin: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fminf: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fminl: (libc)Misc FP Arithmetic.
* fmod: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* fmodf: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* fmodl: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* fmtmsg: (libc)Printing Formatted Messages.
* fnmatch: (libc)Wildcard Matching.
* fopen64: (libc)Opening Streams.
* fopen: (libc)Opening Streams.
* fopencookie: (libc)Streams and Cookies.
* fork: (libc)Creating a Process.
* forkpty: (libc)Pseudo-Terminal Pairs.
* fpathconf: (libc)Pathconf.
* fpclassify: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* fprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* fputc: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputc_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputs: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputs_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputwc: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputwc_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputws: (libc)Simple Output.
* fputws_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* fread: (libc)Block Input/Output.
* fread_unlocked: (libc)Block Input/Output.
* free: (libc)Freeing after Malloc.
* freopen64: (libc)Opening Streams.
* freopen: (libc)Opening Streams.
* frexp: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* frexpf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* frexpl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* fscanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* fseek: (libc)File Positioning.
* fseeko64: (libc)File Positioning.
* fseeko: (libc)File Positioning.
* fsetpos64: (libc)Portable Positioning.
* fsetpos: (libc)Portable Positioning.
* fstat64: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* fstat: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* fsync: (libc)Synchronizing I/O.
* ftell: (libc)File Positioning.
* ftello64: (libc)File Positioning.
* ftello: (libc)File Positioning.
* ftruncate64: (libc)File Size.
* ftruncate: (libc)File Size.
* ftrylockfile: (libc)Streams and Threads.
* ftw64: (libc)Working with Directory Trees.
* ftw: (libc)Working with Directory Trees.
* funlockfile: (libc)Streams and Threads.
* futimes: (libc)File Times.
* fwide: (libc)Streams and I18N.
* fwprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* fwrite: (libc)Block Input/Output.
* fwrite_unlocked: (libc)Block Input/Output.
* fwscanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* gamma: (libc)Special Functions.
* gammaf: (libc)Special Functions.
* gammal: (libc)Special Functions.
* gcvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* get_avphys_pages: (libc)Query Memory Parameters.
* get_current_dir_name: (libc)Working Directory.
* get_nprocs: (libc)Processor Resources.
* get_nprocs_conf: (libc)Processor Resources.
* get_phys_pages: (libc)Query Memory Parameters.
* getauxval: (libc)Auxiliary Vector.
* getc: (libc)Character Input.
* getc_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* getchar: (libc)Character Input.
* getchar_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* getcontext: (libc)System V contexts.
* getcwd: (libc)Working Directory.
* getdate: (libc)General Time String Parsing.
* getdate_r: (libc)General Time String Parsing.
* getdelim: (libc)Line Input.
* getdomainnname: (libc)Host Identification.
* getegid: (libc)Reading Persona.
* getenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* geteuid: (libc)Reading Persona.
* getfsent: (libc)fstab.
* getfsfile: (libc)fstab.
* getfsspec: (libc)fstab.
* getgid: (libc)Reading Persona.
* getgrent: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* getgrent_r: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* getgrgid: (libc)Lookup Group.
* getgrgid_r: (libc)Lookup Group.
* getgrnam: (libc)Lookup Group.
* getgrnam_r: (libc)Lookup Group.
* getgrouplist: (libc)Setting Groups.
* getgroups: (libc)Reading Persona.
* gethostbyaddr: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostbyaddr_r: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostbyname2: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostbyname2_r: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostbyname: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostbyname_r: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostent: (libc)Host Names.
* gethostid: (libc)Host Identification.
* gethostname: (libc)Host Identification.
* getitimer: (libc)Setting an Alarm.
* getline: (libc)Line Input.
* getloadavg: (libc)Processor Resources.
* getlogin: (libc)Who Logged In.
* getmntent: (libc)mtab.
* getmntent_r: (libc)mtab.
* getnetbyaddr: (libc)Networks Database.
* getnetbyname: (libc)Networks Database.
* getnetent: (libc)Networks Database.
* getnetgrent: (libc)Lookup Netgroup.
* getnetgrent_r: (libc)Lookup Netgroup.
* getopt: (libc)Using Getopt.
* getopt_long: (libc)Getopt Long Options.
* getopt_long_only: (libc)Getopt Long Options.
* getpagesize: (libc)Query Memory Parameters.
* getpass: (libc)getpass.
* getpeername: (libc)Who is Connected.
* getpgid: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* getpgrp: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* getpid: (libc)Process Identification.
* getppid: (libc)Process Identification.
* getpriority: (libc)Traditional Scheduling Functions.
* getprotobyname: (libc)Protocols Database.
* getprotobynumber: (libc)Protocols Database.
* getprotoent: (libc)Protocols Database.
* getpt: (libc)Allocation.
* getpwent: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* getpwent_r: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* getpwnam: (libc)Lookup User.
* getpwnam_r: (libc)Lookup User.
* getpwuid: (libc)Lookup User.
* getpwuid_r: (libc)Lookup User.
* getrlimit64: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* getrlimit: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* getrusage: (libc)Resource Usage.
* gets: (libc)Line Input.
* getservbyname: (libc)Services Database.
* getservbyport: (libc)Services Database.
* getservent: (libc)Services Database.
* getsid: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* getsockname: (libc)Reading Address.
* getsockopt: (libc)Socket Option Functions.
* getsubopt: (libc)Suboptions.
* gettext: (libc)Translation with gettext.
* gettimeofday: (libc)High-Resolution Calendar.
* getuid: (libc)Reading Persona.
* getumask: (libc)Setting Permissions.
* getutent: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutent_r: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutid: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutid_r: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutline: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutline_r: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* getutmp: (libc)XPG Functions.
* getutmpx: (libc)XPG Functions.
* getutxent: (libc)XPG Functions.
* getutxid: (libc)XPG Functions.
* getutxline: (libc)XPG Functions.
* getw: (libc)Character Input.
* getwc: (libc)Character Input.
* getwc_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* getwchar: (libc)Character Input.
* getwchar_unlocked: (libc)Character Input.
* getwd: (libc)Working Directory.
* glob64: (libc)Calling Glob.
* glob: (libc)Calling Glob.
* globfree64: (libc)More Flags for Globbing.
* globfree: (libc)More Flags for Globbing.
* gmtime: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* gmtime_r: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* grantpt: (libc)Allocation.
* gsignal: (libc)Signaling Yourself.
* gtty: (libc)BSD Terminal Modes.
* hasmntopt: (libc)mtab.
* hcreate: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* hcreate_r: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* hdestroy: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* hdestroy_r: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* hsearch: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* hsearch_r: (libc)Hash Search Function.
* htonl: (libc)Byte Order.
* htons: (libc)Byte Order.
* hypot: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* hypotf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* hypotl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* iconv: (libc)Generic Conversion Interface.
* iconv_close: (libc)Generic Conversion Interface.
* iconv_open: (libc)Generic Conversion Interface.
* if_freenameindex: (libc)Interface Naming.
* if_indextoname: (libc)Interface Naming.
* if_nameindex: (libc)Interface Naming.
* if_nametoindex: (libc)Interface Naming.
* ilogb: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* ilogbf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* ilogbl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* imaxabs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* imaxdiv: (libc)Integer Division.
* in6addr_any: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* in6addr_loopback: (libc)Host Address Data Type.
* index: (libc)Search Functions.
* inet_addr: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_aton: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_lnaof: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_makeaddr: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_netof: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_network: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_ntoa: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_ntop: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* inet_pton: (libc)Host Address Functions.
* initgroups: (libc)Setting Groups.
* initstate: (libc)BSD Random.
* initstate_r: (libc)BSD Random.
* innetgr: (libc)Netgroup Membership.
* ioctl: (libc)IOCTLs.
* isalnum: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isalpha: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isascii: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isatty: (libc)Is It a Terminal.
* isblank: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* iscntrl: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isdigit: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isfinite: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isgraph: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isgreater: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* isgreaterequal: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* isinf: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isinff: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isinfl: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isless: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* islessequal: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* islessgreater: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* islower: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isnan: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isnan: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isnanf: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isnanl: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isnormal: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isprint: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* ispunct: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* issignaling: (libc)Floating Point Classes.
* isspace: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* isunordered: (libc)FP Comparison Functions.
* isupper: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* iswalnum: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswalpha: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswblank: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswcntrl: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswctype: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswdigit: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswgraph: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswlower: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswprint: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswpunct: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswspace: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswupper: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* iswxdigit: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* isxdigit: (libc)Classification of Characters.
* j0: (libc)Special Functions.
* j0f: (libc)Special Functions.
* j0l: (libc)Special Functions.
* j1: (libc)Special Functions.
* j1f: (libc)Special Functions.
* j1l: (libc)Special Functions.
* jn: (libc)Special Functions.
* jnf: (libc)Special Functions.
* jnl: (libc)Special Functions.
* jrand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* jrand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* kill: (libc)Signaling Another Process.
* killpg: (libc)Signaling Another Process.
* l64a: (libc)Encode Binary Data.
* labs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* lcong48: (libc)SVID Random.
* lcong48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* ldexp: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* ldexpf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* ldexpl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* ldiv: (libc)Integer Division.
* lfind: (libc)Array Search Function.
* lgamma: (libc)Special Functions.
* lgamma_r: (libc)Special Functions.
* lgammaf: (libc)Special Functions.
* lgammaf_r: (libc)Special Functions.
* lgammal: (libc)Special Functions.
* lgammal_r: (libc)Special Functions.
* link: (libc)Hard Links.
* lio_listio64: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* lio_listio: (libc)Asynchronous Reads/Writes.
* listen: (libc)Listening.
* llabs: (libc)Absolute Value.
* lldiv: (libc)Integer Division.
* llrint: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* llrintf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* llrintl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* llround: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* llroundf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* llroundl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* localeconv: (libc)The Lame Way to Locale Data.
* localtime: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* localtime_r: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* log10: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log10f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log10l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log1p: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log1pf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log1pl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log2: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log2f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log2l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* log: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* logb: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* logbf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* logbl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* logf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* login: (libc)Logging In and Out.
* login_tty: (libc)Logging In and Out.
* logl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* logout: (libc)Logging In and Out.
* logwtmp: (libc)Logging In and Out.
* longjmp: (libc)Non-Local Details.
* lrand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* lrand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* lrint: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lrintf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lrintl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lround: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lroundf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lroundl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* lsearch: (libc)Array Search Function.
* lseek64: (libc)File Position Primitive.
* lseek: (libc)File Position Primitive.
* lstat64: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* lstat: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* lutimes: (libc)File Times.
* madvise: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* makecontext: (libc)System V contexts.
* mallinfo: (libc)Statistics of Malloc.
* malloc: (libc)Basic Allocation.
* mallopt: (libc)Malloc Tunable Parameters.
* mblen: (libc)Non-reentrant Character Conversion.
* mbrlen: (libc)Converting a Character.
* mbrtowc: (libc)Converting a Character.
* mbsinit: (libc)Keeping the state.
* mbsnrtowcs: (libc)Converting Strings.
* mbsrtowcs: (libc)Converting Strings.
* mbstowcs: (libc)Non-reentrant String Conversion.
* mbtowc: (libc)Non-reentrant Character Conversion.
* mcheck: (libc)Heap Consistency Checking.
* memalign: (libc)Aligned Memory Blocks.
* memccpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* memchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* memcmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* memcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* memfrob: (libc)Trivial Encryption.
* memmem: (libc)Search Functions.
* memmove: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* mempcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* memrchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* memset: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* mkdir: (libc)Creating Directories.
* mkdtemp: (libc)Temporary Files.
* mkfifo: (libc)FIFO Special Files.
* mknod: (libc)Making Special Files.
* mkstemp: (libc)Temporary Files.
* mktemp: (libc)Temporary Files.
* mktime: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* mlock: (libc)Page Lock Functions.
* mlockall: (libc)Page Lock Functions.
* mmap64: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* mmap: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* modf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* modff: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* modfl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* mount: (libc)Mount-Unmount-Remount.
* mprobe: (libc)Heap Consistency Checking.
* mrand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* mrand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* mremap: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* msync: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* mtrace: (libc)Tracing malloc.
* munlock: (libc)Page Lock Functions.
* munlockall: (libc)Page Lock Functions.
* munmap: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* muntrace: (libc)Tracing malloc.
* nan: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nanf: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nanl: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nanosleep: (libc)Sleeping.
* nearbyint: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* nearbyintf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* nearbyintl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* nextafter: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nextafterf: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nextafterl: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nexttoward: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nexttowardf: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nexttowardl: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* nftw64: (libc)Working with Directory Trees.
* nftw: (libc)Working with Directory Trees.
* ngettext: (libc)Advanced gettext functions.
* nice: (libc)Traditional Scheduling Functions.
* nl_langinfo: (libc)The Elegant and Fast Way.
* nrand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* nrand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* ntohl: (libc)Byte Order.
* ntohs: (libc)Byte Order.
* ntp_adjtime: (libc)High Accuracy Clock.
* ntp_gettime: (libc)High Accuracy Clock.
* obstack_1grow: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_1grow_fast: (libc)Extra Fast Growing.
* obstack_alignment_mask: (libc)Obstacks Data Alignment.
* obstack_alloc: (libc)Allocation in an Obstack.
* obstack_base: (libc)Status of an Obstack.
* obstack_blank: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_blank_fast: (libc)Extra Fast Growing.
* obstack_chunk_size: (libc)Obstack Chunks.
* obstack_copy0: (libc)Allocation in an Obstack.
* obstack_copy: (libc)Allocation in an Obstack.
* obstack_finish: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_free: (libc)Freeing Obstack Objects.
* obstack_grow0: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_grow: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_init: (libc)Preparing for Obstacks.
* obstack_int_grow: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_int_grow_fast: (libc)Extra Fast Growing.
* obstack_next_free: (libc)Status of an Obstack.
* obstack_object_size: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_object_size: (libc)Status of an Obstack.
* obstack_printf: (libc)Dynamic Output.
* obstack_ptr_grow: (libc)Growing Objects.
* obstack_ptr_grow_fast: (libc)Extra Fast Growing.
* obstack_room: (libc)Extra Fast Growing.
* obstack_vprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* offsetof: (libc)Structure Measurement.
* on_exit: (libc)Cleanups on Exit.
* open64: (libc)Opening and Closing Files.
* open: (libc)Opening and Closing Files.
* open_memstream: (libc)String Streams.
* opendir: (libc)Opening a Directory.
* openlog: (libc)openlog.
* openpty: (libc)Pseudo-Terminal Pairs.
* parse_printf_format: (libc)Parsing a Template String.
* pathconf: (libc)Pathconf.
* pause: (libc)Using Pause.
* pclose: (libc)Pipe to a Subprocess.
* perror: (libc)Error Messages.
* pipe: (libc)Creating a Pipe.
* popen: (libc)Pipe to a Subprocess.
* posix_fallocate64: (libc)Storage Allocation.
* posix_fallocate: (libc)Storage Allocation.
* posix_memalign: (libc)Aligned Memory Blocks.
* pow10: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* pow10f: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* pow10l: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* pow: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* powf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* powl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* pread64: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* pread: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* printf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* printf_size: (libc)Predefined Printf Handlers.
* printf_size_info: (libc)Predefined Printf Handlers.
* psignal: (libc)Signal Messages.
* pthread_getattr_default_np: (libc)Default Thread Attributes.
* pthread_getspecific: (libc)Thread-specific Data.
* pthread_key_create: (libc)Thread-specific Data.
* pthread_key_delete: (libc)Thread-specific Data.
* pthread_setattr_default_np: (libc)Default Thread Attributes.
* pthread_setspecific: (libc)Thread-specific Data.
* ptsname: (libc)Allocation.
* ptsname_r: (libc)Allocation.
* putc: (libc)Simple Output.
* putc_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* putchar: (libc)Simple Output.
* putchar_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* putenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* putpwent: (libc)Writing a User Entry.
* puts: (libc)Simple Output.
* pututline: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* pututxline: (libc)XPG Functions.
* putw: (libc)Simple Output.
* putwc: (libc)Simple Output.
* putwc_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* putwchar: (libc)Simple Output.
* putwchar_unlocked: (libc)Simple Output.
* pwrite64: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* pwrite: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* qecvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* qecvt_r: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* qfcvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* qfcvt_r: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* qgcvt: (libc)System V Number Conversion.
* qsort: (libc)Array Sort Function.
* raise: (libc)Signaling Yourself.
* rand: (libc)ISO Random.
* rand_r: (libc)ISO Random.
* random: (libc)BSD Random.
* random_r: (libc)BSD Random.
* rawmemchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* read: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* readdir64: (libc)Reading/Closing Directory.
* readdir64_r: (libc)Reading/Closing Directory.
* readdir: (libc)Reading/Closing Directory.
* readdir_r: (libc)Reading/Closing Directory.
* readlink: (libc)Symbolic Links.
* readv: (libc)Scatter-Gather.
* realloc: (libc)Changing Block Size.
* realpath: (libc)Symbolic Links.
* recv: (libc)Receiving Data.
* recvfrom: (libc)Receiving Datagrams.
* recvmsg: (libc)Receiving Datagrams.
* regcomp: (libc)POSIX Regexp Compilation.
* regerror: (libc)Regexp Cleanup.
* regexec: (libc)Matching POSIX Regexps.
* regfree: (libc)Regexp Cleanup.
* register_printf_function: (libc)Registering New Conversions.
* remainder: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* remainderf: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* remainderl: (libc)Remainder Functions.
* remove: (libc)Deleting Files.
* rename: (libc)Renaming Files.
* rewind: (libc)File Positioning.
* rewinddir: (libc)Random Access Directory.
* rindex: (libc)Search Functions.
* rint: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* rintf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* rintl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* rmdir: (libc)Deleting Files.
* round: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* roundf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* roundl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* rpmatch: (libc)Yes-or-No Questions.
* sbrk: (libc)Resizing the Data Segment.
* scalb: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbln: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalblnf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalblnl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbn: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbnf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scalbnl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* scandir64: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* scandir: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* scanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* sched_get_priority_max: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_get_priority_min: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_getaffinity: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* sched_getparam: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_getscheduler: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_rr_get_interval: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_setaffinity: (libc)CPU Affinity.
* sched_setparam: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_setscheduler: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* sched_yield: (libc)Basic Scheduling Functions.
* secure_getenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* seed48: (libc)SVID Random.
* seed48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* seekdir: (libc)Random Access Directory.
* select: (libc)Waiting for I/O.
* sem_close: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_destroy: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_getvalue: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_init: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_open: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_post: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_timedwait: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_trywait: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_unlink: (libc)Semaphores.
* sem_wait: (libc)Semaphores.
* semctl: (libc)Semaphores.
* semget: (libc)Semaphores.
* semop: (libc)Semaphores.
* semtimedop: (libc)Semaphores.
* send: (libc)Sending Data.
* sendmsg: (libc)Receiving Datagrams.
* sendto: (libc)Sending Datagrams.
* setbuf: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* setbuffer: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* setcontext: (libc)System V contexts.
* setdomainname: (libc)Host Identification.
* setegid: (libc)Setting Groups.
* setenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* seteuid: (libc)Setting User ID.
* setfsent: (libc)fstab.
* setgid: (libc)Setting Groups.
* setgrent: (libc)Scanning All Groups.
* setgroups: (libc)Setting Groups.
* sethostent: (libc)Host Names.
* sethostid: (libc)Host Identification.
* sethostname: (libc)Host Identification.
* setitimer: (libc)Setting an Alarm.
* setjmp: (libc)Non-Local Details.
* setkey: (libc)DES Encryption.
* setkey_r: (libc)DES Encryption.
* setlinebuf: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* setlocale: (libc)Setting the Locale.
* setlogmask: (libc)setlogmask.
* setmntent: (libc)mtab.
* setnetent: (libc)Networks Database.
* setnetgrent: (libc)Lookup Netgroup.
* setpgid: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* setpgrp: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* setpriority: (libc)Traditional Scheduling Functions.
* setprotoent: (libc)Protocols Database.
* setpwent: (libc)Scanning All Users.
* setregid: (libc)Setting Groups.
* setreuid: (libc)Setting User ID.
* setrlimit64: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* setrlimit: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* setservent: (libc)Services Database.
* setsid: (libc)Process Group Functions.
* setsockopt: (libc)Socket Option Functions.
* setstate: (libc)BSD Random.
* setstate_r: (libc)BSD Random.
* settimeofday: (libc)High-Resolution Calendar.
* setuid: (libc)Setting User ID.
* setutent: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* setutxent: (libc)XPG Functions.
* setvbuf: (libc)Controlling Buffering.
* shm_open: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* shm_unlink: (libc)Memory-mapped I/O.
* shutdown: (libc)Closing a Socket.
* sigaction: (libc)Advanced Signal Handling.
* sigaddset: (libc)Signal Sets.
* sigaltstack: (libc)Signal Stack.
* sigblock: (libc)BSD Signal Handling.
* sigdelset: (libc)Signal Sets.
* sigemptyset: (libc)Signal Sets.
* sigfillset: (libc)Signal Sets.
* siginterrupt: (libc)BSD Signal Handling.
* sigismember: (libc)Signal Sets.
* siglongjmp: (libc)Non-Local Exits and Signals.
* sigmask: (libc)BSD Signal Handling.
* signal: (libc)Basic Signal Handling.
* signbit: (libc)FP Bit Twiddling.
* significand: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* significandf: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* significandl: (libc)Normalization Functions.
* sigpause: (libc)BSD Signal Handling.
* sigpending: (libc)Checking for Pending Signals.
* sigprocmask: (libc)Process Signal Mask.
* sigsetjmp: (libc)Non-Local Exits and Signals.
* sigsetmask: (libc)BSD Signal Handling.
* sigstack: (libc)Signal Stack.
* sigsuspend: (libc)Sigsuspend.
* sin: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sincos: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sincosf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sincosl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sinf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sinh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* sinhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* sinhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* sinl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* sleep: (libc)Sleeping.
* snprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* socket: (libc)Creating a Socket.
* socketpair: (libc)Socket Pairs.
* sprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* sqrt: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* sqrtf: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* sqrtl: (libc)Exponents and Logarithms.
* srand48: (libc)SVID Random.
* srand48_r: (libc)SVID Random.
* srand: (libc)ISO Random.
* srandom: (libc)BSD Random.
* srandom_r: (libc)BSD Random.
* sscanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* ssignal: (libc)Basic Signal Handling.
* stat64: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* stat: (libc)Reading Attributes.
* stime: (libc)Simple Calendar Time.
* stpcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* stpncpy: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* strcasecmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* strcasestr: (libc)Search Functions.
* strcat: (libc)Concatenating Strings.
* strchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* strchrnul: (libc)Search Functions.
* strcmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* strcoll: (libc)Collation Functions.
* strcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* strcspn: (libc)Search Functions.
* strdup: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* strdupa: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* strerror: (libc)Error Messages.
* strerror_r: (libc)Error Messages.
* strfmon: (libc)Formatting Numbers.
* strfry: (libc)strfry.
* strftime: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* strlen: (libc)String Length.
* strncasecmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* strncat: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* strncmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* strncpy: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* strndup: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* strndupa: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* strnlen: (libc)String Length.
* strpbrk: (libc)Search Functions.
* strptime: (libc)Low-Level Time String Parsing.
* strrchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* strsep: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* strsignal: (libc)Signal Messages.
* strspn: (libc)Search Functions.
* strstr: (libc)Search Functions.
* strtod: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* strtof: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* strtoimax: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtok: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* strtok_r: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* strtol: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtold: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* strtoll: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtoq: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtoul: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtoull: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtoumax: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strtouq: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* strverscmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* strxfrm: (libc)Collation Functions.
* stty: (libc)BSD Terminal Modes.
* swapcontext: (libc)System V contexts.
* swprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* swscanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* symlink: (libc)Symbolic Links.
* sync: (libc)Synchronizing I/O.
* syscall: (libc)System Calls.
* sysconf: (libc)Sysconf Definition.
* sysctl: (libc)System Parameters.
* syslog: (libc)syslog; vsyslog.
* system: (libc)Running a Command.
* sysv_signal: (libc)Basic Signal Handling.
* tan: (libc)Trig Functions.
* tanf: (libc)Trig Functions.
* tanh: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* tanhf: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* tanhl: (libc)Hyperbolic Functions.
* tanl: (libc)Trig Functions.
* tcdrain: (libc)Line Control.
* tcflow: (libc)Line Control.
* tcflush: (libc)Line Control.
* tcgetattr: (libc)Mode Functions.
* tcgetpgrp: (libc)Terminal Access Functions.
* tcgetsid: (libc)Terminal Access Functions.
* tcsendbreak: (libc)Line Control.
* tcsetattr: (libc)Mode Functions.
* tcsetpgrp: (libc)Terminal Access Functions.
* tdelete: (libc)Tree Search Function.
* tdestroy: (libc)Tree Search Function.
* telldir: (libc)Random Access Directory.
* tempnam: (libc)Temporary Files.
* textdomain: (libc)Locating gettext catalog.
* tfind: (libc)Tree Search Function.
* tgamma: (libc)Special Functions.
* tgammaf: (libc)Special Functions.
* tgammal: (libc)Special Functions.
* time: (libc)Simple Calendar Time.
* timegm: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* timelocal: (libc)Broken-down Time.
* times: (libc)Processor Time.
* tmpfile64: (libc)Temporary Files.
* tmpfile: (libc)Temporary Files.
* tmpnam: (libc)Temporary Files.
* tmpnam_r: (libc)Temporary Files.
* toascii: (libc)Case Conversion.
* tolower: (libc)Case Conversion.
* toupper: (libc)Case Conversion.
* towctrans: (libc)Wide Character Case Conversion.
* towlower: (libc)Wide Character Case Conversion.
* towupper: (libc)Wide Character Case Conversion.
* trunc: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* truncate64: (libc)File Size.
* truncate: (libc)File Size.
* truncf: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* truncl: (libc)Rounding Functions.
* tsearch: (libc)Tree Search Function.
* ttyname: (libc)Is It a Terminal.
* ttyname_r: (libc)Is It a Terminal.
* twalk: (libc)Tree Search Function.
* tzset: (libc)Time Zone Functions.
* ulimit: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* umask: (libc)Setting Permissions.
* umount2: (libc)Mount-Unmount-Remount.
* umount: (libc)Mount-Unmount-Remount.
* uname: (libc)Platform Type.
* ungetc: (libc)How Unread.
* ungetwc: (libc)How Unread.
* unlink: (libc)Deleting Files.
* unlockpt: (libc)Allocation.
* unsetenv: (libc)Environment Access.
* updwtmp: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* utime: (libc)File Times.
* utimes: (libc)File Times.
* utmpname: (libc)Manipulating the Database.
* utmpxname: (libc)XPG Functions.
* va_arg: (libc)Argument Macros.
* va_copy: (libc)Argument Macros.
* va_end: (libc)Argument Macros.
* va_start: (libc)Argument Macros.
* valloc: (libc)Aligned Memory Blocks.
* vasprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* verr: (libc)Error Messages.
* verrx: (libc)Error Messages.
* versionsort64: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* versionsort: (libc)Scanning Directory Content.
* vfork: (libc)Creating a Process.
* vfprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vfscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* vfwprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vfwscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* vlimit: (libc)Limits on Resources.
* vprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* vsnprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vsprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vsscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* vswprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vswscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* vsyslog: (libc)syslog; vsyslog.
* vtimes: (libc)Resource Usage.
* vwarn: (libc)Error Messages.
* vwarnx: (libc)Error Messages.
* vwprintf: (libc)Variable Arguments Output.
* vwscanf: (libc)Variable Arguments Input.
* wait3: (libc)BSD Wait Functions.
* wait4: (libc)Process Completion.
* wait: (libc)Process Completion.
* waitpid: (libc)Process Completion.
* warn: (libc)Error Messages.
* warnx: (libc)Error Messages.
* wcpcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wcpncpy: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* wcrtomb: (libc)Converting a Character.
* wcscasecmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* wcscat: (libc)Concatenating Strings.
* wcschr: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcschrnul: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcscmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* wcscoll: (libc)Collation Functions.
* wcscpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wcscspn: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcsdup: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wcsftime: (libc)Formatting Calendar Time.
* wcslen: (libc)String Length.
* wcsncasecmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* wcsncat: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* wcsncmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* wcsncpy: (libc)Truncating Strings.
* wcsnlen: (libc)String Length.
* wcsnrtombs: (libc)Converting Strings.
* wcspbrk: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcsrchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcsrtombs: (libc)Converting Strings.
* wcsspn: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcsstr: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcstod: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* wcstof: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* wcstoimax: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstok: (libc)Finding Tokens in a String.
* wcstol: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstold: (libc)Parsing of Floats.
* wcstoll: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstombs: (libc)Non-reentrant String Conversion.
* wcstoq: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstoul: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstoull: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstoumax: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcstouq: (libc)Parsing of Integers.
* wcswcs: (libc)Search Functions.
* wcsxfrm: (libc)Collation Functions.
* wctob: (libc)Converting a Character.
* wctomb: (libc)Non-reentrant Character Conversion.
* wctrans: (libc)Wide Character Case Conversion.
* wctype: (libc)Classification of Wide Characters.
* wmemchr: (libc)Search Functions.
* wmemcmp: (libc)String/Array Comparison.
* wmemcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wmemmove: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wmempcpy: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wmemset: (libc)Copying Strings and Arrays.
* wordexp: (libc)Calling Wordexp.
* wordfree: (libc)Calling Wordexp.
* wprintf: (libc)Formatted Output Functions.
* write: (libc)I/O Primitives.
* writev: (libc)Scatter-Gather.
* wscanf: (libc)Formatted Input Functions.
* y0: (libc)Special Functions.
* y0f: (libc)Special Functions.
* y0l: (libc)Special Functions.
* y1: (libc)Special Functions.
* y1f: (libc)Special Functions.
* y1l: (libc)Special Functions.
* yn: (libc)Special Functions.
* ynf: (libc)Special Functions.
* ynl: (libc)Special Functions.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

File: libc.info, Node: Numeric Input Conversions, Next: String Input Conversions, Prev: Table of Input Conversions, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.4 Numeric Input Conversions
---------------------------------
This section describes the scanf conversions for reading numeric
values.
The %d conversion matches an optionally signed integer in decimal
radix. The syntax that is recognized is the same as that for the
strtol function (*note Parsing of Integers::) with the value 10 for
the BASE argument.
The %i conversion matches an optionally signed integer in any of
the formats that the C language defines for specifying an integer
constant. The syntax that is recognized is the same as that for the
strtol function (*note Parsing of Integers::) with the value 0 for
the BASE argument. (You can print integers in this syntax with printf
by using the # flag character with the %x, %o, or %d conversion.
*Note Integer Conversions::.)
For example, any of the strings 10, 0xa, or 012 could be read
in as integers under the %i conversion. Each of these specifies a
number with decimal value 10.
The %o, %u, and %x conversions match unsigned integers in
octal, decimal, and hexadecimal radices, respectively. The syntax that
is recognized is the same as that for the strtoul function (*note
Parsing of Integers::) with the appropriate value (8, 10, or 16)
for the BASE argument.
The %X conversion is identical to the %x conversion. They both
permit either uppercase or lowercase letters to be used as digits.
The default type of the corresponding argument for the %d and %i
conversions is int *, and unsigned int * for the other integer
conversions. You can use the following type modifiers to specify other
sizes of integer:
hh
Specifies that the argument is a signed char * or unsigned char
*.
This modifier was introduced in ISO C99.
h
Specifies that the argument is a short int * or unsigned short
int *.
j
Specifies that the argument is a intmax_t * or uintmax_t *.
This modifier was introduced in ISO C99.
l
Specifies that the argument is a long int * or unsigned long int
*. Two l characters is like the L modifier, below.
If used with %c or %s the corresponding parameter is considered
as a pointer to a wide character or wide character string
respectively. This use of l was introduced in Amendment 1 to
ISO C90.
ll
L
q
Specifies that the argument is a long long int * or unsigned
long long int *. (The long long type is an extension supported
by the GNU C compiler. For systems that dont provide extra-long
integers, this is the same as long int.)
The q modifier is another name for the same thing, which comes
from 4.4 BSD; a long long int is sometimes called a “quad” int.
t
Specifies that the argument is a ptrdiff_t *.
This modifier was introduced in ISO C99.
z
Specifies that the argument is a size_t *.
This modifier was introduced in ISO C99.
All of the %e, %f, %g, %E, and %G input conversions are
interchangeable. They all match an optionally signed floating point
number, in the same syntax as for the strtod function (*note Parsing
of Floats::).
For the floating-point input conversions, the default argument type
is float *. (This is different from the corresponding output
conversions, where the default type is double; remember that float
arguments to printf are converted to double by the default argument
promotions, but float * arguments are not promoted to double *.)
You can specify other sizes of float using these type modifiers:
l
Specifies that the argument is of type double *.
L
Specifies that the argument is of type long double *.
For all the above number parsing formats there is an additional
optional flag '. When this flag is given the scanf function expects
the number represented in the input string to be formatted according to
the grouping rules of the currently selected locale (*note General
Numeric::).
If the "C" or "POSIX" locale is selected there is no difference.
But for a locale which specifies values for the appropriate fields in
the locale the input must have the correct form in the input. Otherwise
the longest prefix with a correct form is processed.

File: libc.info, Node: String Input Conversions, Next: Dynamic String Input, Prev: Numeric Input Conversions, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.5 String Input Conversions
--------------------------------
This section describes the scanf input conversions for reading string
and character values: %s, %S, %[, %c, and %C.
You have two options for how to receive the input from these
conversions:
• Provide a buffer to store it in. This is the default. You should
provide an argument of type char * or wchar_t * (the latter of
the l modifier is present).
*Warning:* To make a robust program, you must make sure that the
input (plus its terminating null) cannot possibly exceed the size
of the buffer you provide. In general, the only way to do this is
to specify a maximum field width one less than the buffer size.
*If you provide the buffer, always specify a maximum field width to
prevent overflow.*
• Ask scanf to allocate a big enough buffer, by specifying the a
flag character. This is a GNU extension. You should provide an
argument of type char ** for the buffer address to be stored in.
*Note Dynamic String Input::.
The %c conversion is the simplest: it matches a fixed number of
characters, always. The maximum field width says how many characters to
read; if you dont specify the maximum, the default is 1. This
conversion doesnt append a null character to the end of the text it
reads. It also does not skip over initial whitespace characters. It
reads precisely the next N characters, and fails if it cannot get that
many. Since there is always a maximum field width with %c (whether
specified, or 1 by default), you can always prevent overflow by making
the buffer long enough.
If the format is %lc or %C the function stores wide characters
which are converted using the conversion determined at the time the
stream was opened from the external byte stream. The number of bytes
read from the medium is limited by MB_CUR_LEN * N but at most N wide
character get stored in the output string.
The %s conversion matches a string of non-whitespace characters.
It skips and discards initial whitespace, but stops when it encounters
more whitespace after having read something. It stores a null character
at the end of the text that it reads.
For example, reading the input:
hello, world
with the conversion %10c produces " hello, wo", but reading the same
input with the conversion %10s produces "hello,".
*Warning:* If you do not specify a field width for %s, then the
number of characters read is limited only by where the next whitespace
character appears. This almost certainly means that invalid input can
make your program crash—which is a bug.
The %ls and %S format are handled just like %s except that the
external byte sequence is converted using the conversion associated with
the stream to wide characters with their own encoding. A width or
precision specified with the format do not directly determine how many
bytes are read from the stream since they measure wide characters. But
an upper limit can be computed by multiplying the value of the width or
precision by MB_CUR_MAX.
To read in characters that belong to an arbitrary set of your choice,
use the %[ conversion. You specify the set between the [ character
and a following ] character, using the same syntax used in regular
expressions for explicit sets of characters. As special cases:
• A literal ] character can be specified as the first character of
the set.
• An embedded - character (that is, one that is not the first or
last character of the set) is used to specify a range of
characters.
• If a caret character ^ immediately follows the initial [, then
the set of allowed input characters is the everything _except_ the
characters listed.
The %[ conversion does not skip over initial whitespace characters.
Note that the "character class" syntax available in character sets
that appear inside regular expressions (such as [:alpha:]) is _not_
available in the %[ conversion.
Here are some examples of %[ conversions and what they mean:
%25[1234567890]
Matches a string of up to 25 digits.
%25[][]
Matches a string of up to 25 square brackets.
%25[^ \f\n\r\t\v]
Matches a string up to 25 characters long that doesnt contain any
of the standard whitespace characters. This is slightly different
from %s, because if the input begins with a whitespace character,
%[ reports a matching failure while %s simply discards the
initial whitespace.
%25[a-z]
Matches up to 25 lowercase characters.
As for %c and %s the %[ format is also modified to produce wide
characters if the l modifier is present. All what is said about %ls
above is true for %l[.
One more reminder: the %s and %[ conversions are *dangerous* if
you dont specify a maximum width or use the a flag, because input too
long would overflow whatever buffer you have provided for it. No matter
how long your buffer is, a user could supply input that is longer. A
well-written program reports invalid input with a comprehensible error
message, not with a crash.

File: libc.info, Node: Dynamic String Input, Next: Other Input Conversions, Prev: String Input Conversions, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.6 Dynamically Allocating String Conversions
-------------------------------------------------
A GNU extension to formatted input lets you safely read a string with no
maximum size. Using this feature, you dont supply a buffer; instead,
scanf allocates a buffer big enough to hold the data and gives you its
address. To use this feature, write a as a flag character, as in
%as or %a[0-9a-z].
The pointer argument you supply for where to store the input should
have type char **. The scanf function allocates a buffer and stores
its address in the word that the argument points to. You should free
the buffer with free when you no longer need it.
Here is an example of using the a flag with the %[…] conversion
specification to read a “variable assignment” of the form VARIABLE =
VALUE.
{
char *variable, *value;
if (2 > scanf ("%a[a-zA-Z0-9] = %a[^\n]\n",
&variable, &value))
{
invalid_input_error ();
return 0;
}
}

File: libc.info, Node: Other Input Conversions, Next: Formatted Input Functions, Prev: Dynamic String Input, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.7 Other Input Conversions
-------------------------------
This section describes the miscellaneous input conversions.
The %p conversion is used to read a pointer value. It recognizes
the same syntax used by the %p output conversion for printf (*note
Other Output Conversions::); that is, a hexadecimal number just as the
%x conversion accepts. The corresponding argument should be of type
void **; that is, the address of a place to store a pointer.
The resulting pointer value is not guaranteed to be valid if it was
not originally written during the same program execution that reads it
in.
The %n conversion produces the number of characters read so far by
this call. The corresponding argument should be of type int *. This
conversion works in the same way as the %n conversion for printf;
see *note Other Output Conversions::, for an example.
The %n conversion is the only mechanism for determining the success
of literal matches or conversions with suppressed assignments. If the
%n follows the locus of a matching failure, then no value is stored
for it since scanf returns before processing the %n. If you store
-1 in that argument slot before calling scanf, the presence of -1
after scanf indicates an error occurred before the %n was reached.
Finally, the %% conversion matches a literal % character in the
input stream, without using an argument. This conversion does not
permit any flags, field width, or type modifier to be specified.

File: libc.info, Node: Formatted Input Functions, Next: Variable Arguments Input, Prev: Other Input Conversions, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.8 Formatted Input Functions
---------------------------------
Here are the descriptions of the functions for performing formatted
input. Prototypes for these functions are in the header file stdio.h.
-- Function: int scanf (const char *TEMPLATE, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The scanf function reads formatted input from the stream stdin
under the control of the template string TEMPLATE. The optional
arguments are pointers to the places which receive the resulting
values.
The return value is normally the number of successful assignments.
If an end-of-file condition is detected before any matches are
performed, including matches against whitespace and literal
characters in the template, then EOF is returned.
-- Function: int wscanf (const wchar_t *TEMPLATE, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The wscanf function reads formatted input from the stream stdin
under the control of the template string TEMPLATE. The optional
arguments are pointers to the places which receive the resulting
values.
The return value is normally the number of successful assignments.
If an end-of-file condition is detected before any matches are
performed, including matches against whitespace and literal
characters in the template, then WEOF is returned.
-- Function: int fscanf (FILE *STREAM, const char *TEMPLATE, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is just like scanf, except that the input is read
from the stream STREAM instead of stdin.
-- Function: int fwscanf (FILE *STREAM, const wchar_t *TEMPLATE, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is just like wscanf, except that the input is read
from the stream STREAM instead of stdin.
-- Function: int sscanf (const char *S, const char *TEMPLATE, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is like scanf, except that the characters are taken from the
null-terminated string S instead of from a stream. Reaching the
end of the string is treated as an end-of-file condition.
The behavior of this function is undefined if copying takes place
between objects that overlap—for example, if S is also given as an
argument to receive a string read under control of the %s, %S,
or %[ conversion.
-- Function: int swscanf (const wchar_t *WS, const wchar_t *TEMPLATE,
…)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is like wscanf, except that the characters are taken from
the null-terminated string WS instead of from a stream. Reaching
the end of the string is treated as an end-of-file condition.
The behavior of this function is undefined if copying takes place
between objects that overlap—for example, if WS is also given as an
argument to receive a string read under control of the %s, %S,
or %[ conversion.

File: libc.info, Node: Variable Arguments Input, Prev: Formatted Input Functions, Up: Formatted Input
12.14.9 Variable Arguments Input Functions
------------------------------------------
The functions vscanf and friends are provided so that you can define
your own variadic scanf-like functions that make use of the same
internals as the built-in formatted output functions. These functions
are analogous to the vprintf series of output functions. *Note
Variable Arguments Output::, for important information on how to use
them.
*Portability Note:* The functions listed in this section were
introduced in ISO C99 and were before available as GNU extensions.
-- Function: int vscanf (const char *TEMPLATE, va_list AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to scanf, but instead of taking a
variable number of arguments directly, it takes an argument list
pointer AP of type va_list (*note Variadic Functions::).
-- Function: int vwscanf (const wchar_t *TEMPLATE, va_list AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to wscanf, but instead of taking a
variable number of arguments directly, it takes an argument list
pointer AP of type va_list (*note Variadic Functions::).
-- Function: int vfscanf (FILE *STREAM, const char *TEMPLATE, va_list
AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is the equivalent of fscanf with the variable argument list
specified directly as for vscanf.
-- Function: int vfwscanf (FILE *STREAM, const wchar_t *TEMPLATE,
va_list AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe corrupt heap | AC-Unsafe
mem lock corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is the equivalent of fwscanf with the variable argument list
specified directly as for vwscanf.
-- Function: int vsscanf (const char *S, const char *TEMPLATE, va_list
AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is the equivalent of sscanf with the variable argument list
specified directly as for vscanf.
-- Function: int vswscanf (const wchar_t *S, const wchar_t *TEMPLATE,
va_list AP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This is the equivalent of swscanf with the variable argument list
specified directly as for vwscanf.
In GNU C, there is a special construct you can use to let the
compiler know that a function uses a scanf-style format string. Then
it can check the number and types of arguments in each call to the
function, and warn you when they do not match the format string. For
details, see *note Declaring Attributes of Functions: (gcc.info)Function
Attributes.

File: libc.info, Node: EOF and Errors, Next: Error Recovery, Prev: Formatted Input, Up: I/O on Streams
12.15 End-Of-File and Errors
============================
Many of the functions described in this chapter return the value of the
macro EOF to indicate unsuccessful completion of the operation. Since
EOF is used to report both end of file and random errors, its often
better to use the feof function to check explicitly for end of file
and ferror to check for errors. These functions check indicators that
are part of the internal state of the stream object, indicators set if
the appropriate condition was detected by a previous I/O operation on
that stream.
-- Macro: int EOF
This macro is an integer value that is returned by a number of
narrow stream functions to indicate an end-of-file condition, or
some other error situation. With the GNU C Library, EOF is -1.
In other libraries, its value may be some other negative number.
This symbol is declared in stdio.h.
-- Macro: int WEOF
This macro is an integer value that is returned by a number of wide
stream functions to indicate an end-of-file condition, or some
other error situation. With the GNU C Library, WEOF is -1. In
other libraries, its value may be some other negative number.
This symbol is declared in wchar.h.
-- Function: int feof (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
The feof function returns nonzero if and only if the end-of-file
indicator for the stream STREAM is set.
This symbol is declared in stdio.h.
-- Function: int feof_unlocked (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The feof_unlocked function is equivalent to the feof function
except that it does not implicitly lock the stream.
This function is a GNU extension.
This symbol is declared in stdio.h.
-- Function: int ferror (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
The ferror function returns nonzero if and only if the error
indicator for the stream STREAM is set, indicating that an error
has occurred on a previous operation on the stream.
This symbol is declared in stdio.h.
-- Function: int ferror_unlocked (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The ferror_unlocked function is equivalent to the ferror
function except that it does not implicitly lock the stream.
This function is a GNU extension.
This symbol is declared in stdio.h.
In addition to setting the error indicator associated with the
stream, the functions that operate on streams also set errno in the
same way as the corresponding low-level functions that operate on file
descriptors. For example, all of the functions that perform output to a
stream—such as fputc, printf, and fflush—are implemented in terms
of write, and all of the errno error conditions defined for write
are meaningful for these functions. For more information about the
descriptor-level I/O functions, see *note Low-Level I/O::.

File: libc.info, Node: Error Recovery, Next: Binary Streams, Prev: EOF and Errors, Up: I/O on Streams
12.16 Recovering from errors
============================
You may explicitly clear the error and EOF flags with the clearerr
function.
-- Function: void clearerr (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
This function clears the end-of-file and error indicators for the
stream STREAM.
The file positioning functions (*note File Positioning::) also
clear the end-of-file indicator for the stream.
-- Function: void clearerr_unlocked (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:stream | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The clearerr_unlocked function is equivalent to the clearerr
function except that it does not implicitly lock the stream.
This function is a GNU extension.
Note that it is _not_ correct to just clear the error flag and retry
a failed stream operation. After a failed write, any number of
characters since the last buffer flush may have been committed to the
file, while some buffered data may have been discarded. Merely retrying
can thus cause lost or repeated data.
A failed read may leave the file pointer in an inappropriate position
for a second try. In both cases, you should seek to a known position
before retrying.
Most errors that can happen are not recoverable — a second try will
always fail again in the same way. So usually it is best to give up and
report the error to the user, rather than install complicated recovery
logic.
One important exception is EINTR (*note Interrupted Primitives::).
Many stream I/O implementations will treat it as an ordinary error,
which can be quite inconvenient. You can avoid this hassle by
installing all signals with the SA_RESTART flag.
For similar reasons, setting nonblocking I/O on a streams file
descriptor is not usually advisable.

File: libc.info, Node: Binary Streams, Next: File Positioning, Prev: Error Recovery, Up: I/O on Streams
12.17 Text and Binary Streams
=============================
GNU systems and other POSIX-compatible operating systems organize all
files as uniform sequences of characters. However, some other systems
make a distinction between files containing text and files containing
binary data, and the input and output facilities of ISO C provide for
this distinction. This section tells you how to write programs portable
to such systems.
When you open a stream, you can specify either a "text stream" or a
"binary stream". You indicate that you want a binary stream by
specifying the b modifier in the OPENTYPE argument to fopen; see
*note Opening Streams::. Without this option, fopen opens the file as
a text stream.
Text and binary streams differ in several ways:
• The data read from a text stream is divided into "lines" which are
terminated by newline ('\n') characters, while a binary stream is
simply a long series of characters. A text stream might on some
systems fail to handle lines more than 254 characters long
(including the terminating newline character).
• On some systems, text files can contain only printing characters,
horizontal tab characters, and newlines, and so text streams may
not support other characters. However, binary streams can handle
any character value.
• Space characters that are written immediately preceding a newline
character in a text stream may disappear when the file is read in
again.
• More generally, there need not be a one-to-one mapping between
characters that are read from or written to a text stream, and the
characters in the actual file.
Since a binary stream is always more capable and more predictable
than a text stream, you might wonder what purpose text streams serve.
Why not simply always use binary streams? The answer is that on these
operating systems, text and binary streams use different file formats,
and the only way to read or write “an ordinary file of text” that can
work with other text-oriented programs is through a text stream.
In the GNU C Library, and on all POSIX systems, there is no
difference between text streams and binary streams. When you open a
stream, you get the same kind of stream regardless of whether you ask
for binary. This stream can handle any file content, and has none of
the restrictions that text streams sometimes have.

File: libc.info, Node: File Positioning, Next: Portable Positioning, Prev: Binary Streams, Up: I/O on Streams
12.18 File Positioning
======================
The "file position" of a stream describes where in the file the stream
is currently reading or writing. I/O on the stream advances the file
position through the file. On GNU systems, the file position is
represented as an integer, which counts the number of bytes from the
beginning of the file. *Note File Position::.
During I/O to an ordinary disk file, you can change the file position
whenever you wish, so as to read or write any portion of the file. Some
other kinds of files may also permit this. Files which support changing
the file position are sometimes referred to as "random-access" files.
You can use the functions in this section to examine or modify the
file position indicator associated with a stream. The symbols listed
below are declared in the header file stdio.h.
-- Function: long int ftell (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function returns the current file position of the stream
STREAM.
This function can fail if the stream doesnt support file
positioning, or if the file position cant be represented in a
long int, and possibly for other reasons as well. If a failure
occurs, a value of -1 is returned.
-- Function: off_t ftello (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The ftello function is similar to ftell, except that it returns
a value of type off_t. Systems which support this type use it to
describe all file positions, unlike the POSIX specification which
uses a long int. The two are not necessarily the same size.
Therefore, using ftell can lead to problems if the implementation
is written on top of a POSIX compliant low-level I/O
implementation, and using ftello is preferable whenever it is
available.
If this function fails it returns (off_t) -1. This can happen
due to missing support for file positioning or internal errors.
Otherwise the return value is the current file position.
The function is an extension defined in the Unix Single
Specification version 2.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit system this function is in fact ftello64. I.e., the LFS
interface transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: off64_t ftello64 (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to ftello with the only difference that
the return value is of type off64_t. This also requires that the
stream STREAM was opened using either fopen64, freopen64, or
tmpfile64 since otherwise the underlying file operations to
position the file pointer beyond the 2^31 bytes limit might fail.
If the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a 32
bits machine this function is available under the name ftello and
so transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: int fseek (FILE *STREAM, long int OFFSET, int WHENCE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The fseek function is used to change the file position of the
stream STREAM. The value of WHENCE must be one of the constants
SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END, to indicate whether the
OFFSET is relative to the beginning of the file, the current file
position, or the end of the file, respectively.
This function returns a value of zero if the operation was
successful, and a nonzero value to indicate failure. A successful
call also clears the end-of-file indicator of STREAM and discards
any characters that were “pushed back” by the use of ungetc.
fseek either flushes any buffered output before setting the file
position or else remembers it so it will be written later in its
proper place in the file.
-- Function: int fseeko (FILE *STREAM, off_t OFFSET, int WHENCE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to fseek but it corrects a problem with
fseek in a system with POSIX types. Using a value of type long
int for the offset is not compatible with POSIX. fseeko uses the
correct type off_t for the OFFSET parameter.
For this reason it is a good idea to prefer ftello whenever it is
available since its functionality is (if different at all) closer
the underlying definition.
The functionality and return value is the same as for fseek.
The function is an extension defined in the Unix Single
Specification version 2.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit system this function is in fact fseeko64. I.e., the LFS
interface transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: int fseeko64 (FILE *STREAM, off64_t OFFSET, int WHENCE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to fseeko with the only difference that
the OFFSET parameter is of type off64_t. This also requires that
the stream STREAM was opened using either fopen64, freopen64,
or tmpfile64 since otherwise the underlying file operations to
position the file pointer beyond the 2^31 bytes limit might fail.
If the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a 32
bits machine this function is available under the name fseeko and
so transparently replaces the old interface.
*Portability Note:* In non-POSIX systems, ftell, ftello, fseek
and fseeko might work reliably only on binary streams. *Note Binary
Streams::.
The following symbolic constants are defined for use as the WHENCE
argument to fseek. They are also used with the lseek function
(*note I/O Primitives::) and to specify offsets for file locks (*note
Control Operations::).
-- Macro: int SEEK_SET
This is an integer constant which, when used as the WHENCE argument
to the fseek or fseeko function, specifies that the offset
provided is relative to the beginning of the file.
-- Macro: int SEEK_CUR
This is an integer constant which, when used as the WHENCE argument
to the fseek or fseeko function, specifies that the offset
provided is relative to the current file position.
-- Macro: int SEEK_END
This is an integer constant which, when used as the WHENCE argument
to the fseek or fseeko function, specifies that the offset
provided is relative to the end of the file.
-- Function: void rewind (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The rewind function positions the stream STREAM at the beginning
of the file. It is equivalent to calling fseek or fseeko on
the STREAM with an OFFSET argument of 0L and a WHENCE argument of
SEEK_SET, except that the return value is discarded and the error
indicator for the stream is reset.
These three aliases for the SEEK_… constants exist for the sake of
compatibility with older BSD systems. They are defined in two different
header files: fcntl.h and sys/file.h.
L_SET
An alias for SEEK_SET.
L_INCR
An alias for SEEK_CUR.
L_XTND
An alias for SEEK_END.

File: libc.info, Node: Portable Positioning, Next: Stream Buffering, Prev: File Positioning, Up: I/O on Streams
12.19 Portable File-Position Functions
======================================
On GNU systems, the file position is truly a character count. You can
specify any character count value as an argument to fseek or fseeko
and get reliable results for any random access file. However, some ISO C
systems do not represent file positions in this way.
On some systems where text streams truly differ from binary streams,
it is impossible to represent the file position of a text stream as a
count of characters from the beginning of the file. For example, the
file position on some systems must encode both a record offset within
the file, and a character offset within the record.
As a consequence, if you want your programs to be portable to these
systems, you must observe certain rules:
• The value returned from ftell on a text stream has no predictable
relationship to the number of characters you have read so far. The
only thing you can rely on is that you can use it subsequently as
the OFFSET argument to fseek or fseeko to move back to the same
file position.
• In a call to fseek or fseeko on a text stream, either the
OFFSET must be zero, or WHENCE must be SEEK_SET and the OFFSET
must be the result of an earlier call to ftell on the same
stream.
• The value of the file position indicator of a text stream is
undefined while there are characters that have been pushed back
with ungetc that havent been read or discarded. *Note
Unreading::.
But even if you observe these rules, you may still have trouble for
long files, because ftell and fseek use a long int value to
represent the file position. This type may not have room to encode all
the file positions in a large file. Using the ftello and fseeko
functions might help here since the off_t type is expected to be able
to hold all file position values but this still does not help to handle
additional information which must be associated with a file position.
So if you do want to support systems with peculiar encodings for the
file positions, it is better to use the functions fgetpos and
fsetpos instead. These functions represent the file position using
the data type fpos_t, whose internal representation varies from system
to system.
These symbols are declared in the header file stdio.h.
-- Data Type: fpos_t
This is the type of an object that can encode information about the
file position of a stream, for use by the functions fgetpos and
fsetpos.
In the GNU C Library, fpos_t is an opaque data structure that
contains internal data to represent file offset and conversion
state information. In other systems, it might have a different
internal representation.
When compiling with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a 32 bit machine
this type is in fact equivalent to fpos64_t since the LFS
interface transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Data Type: fpos64_t
This is the type of an object that can encode information about the
file position of a stream, for use by the functions fgetpos64 and
fsetpos64.
In the GNU C Library, fpos64_t is an opaque data structure that
contains internal data to represent file offset and conversion
state information. In other systems, it might have a different
internal representation.
-- Function: int fgetpos (FILE *STREAM, fpos_t *POSITION)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function stores the value of the file position indicator for
the stream STREAM in the fpos_t object pointed to by POSITION.
If successful, fgetpos returns zero; otherwise it returns a
nonzero value and stores an implementation-defined positive value
in errno.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit system the function is in fact fgetpos64. I.e., the LFS
interface transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: int fgetpos64 (FILE *STREAM, fpos64_t *POSITION)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to fgetpos but the file position is
returned in a variable of type fpos64_t to which POSITION points.
If the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a 32
bits machine this function is available under the name fgetpos
and so transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: int fsetpos (FILE *STREAM, const fpos_t *POSITION)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function sets the file position indicator for the stream
STREAM to the position POSITION, which must have been set by a
previous call to fgetpos on the same stream. If successful,
fsetpos clears the end-of-file indicator on the stream, discards
any characters that were “pushed back” by the use of ungetc, and
returns a value of zero. Otherwise, fsetpos returns a nonzero
value and stores an implementation-defined positive value in
errno.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit system the function is in fact fsetpos64. I.e., the LFS
interface transparently replaces the old interface.
-- Function: int fsetpos64 (FILE *STREAM, const fpos64_t *POSITION)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to fsetpos but the file position used
for positioning is provided in a variable of type fpos64_t to
which POSITION points.
If the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a 32
bits machine this function is available under the name fsetpos
and so transparently replaces the old interface.

File: libc.info, Node: Stream Buffering, Next: Other Kinds of Streams, Prev: Portable Positioning, Up: I/O on Streams
12.20 Stream Buffering
======================
Characters that are written to a stream are normally accumulated and
transmitted asynchronously to the file in a block, instead of appearing
as soon as they are output by the application program. Similarly,
streams often retrieve input from the host environment in blocks rather
than on a character-by-character basis. This is called "buffering".
If you are writing programs that do interactive input and output
using streams, you need to understand how buffering works when you
design the user interface to your program. Otherwise, you might find
that output (such as progress or prompt messages) doesnt appear when
you intended it to, or displays some other unexpected behavior.
This section deals only with controlling when characters are
transmitted between the stream and the file or device, and _not_ with
how things like echoing, flow control, and the like are handled on
specific classes of devices. For information on common control
operations on terminal devices, see *note Low-Level Terminal
Interface::.
You can bypass the stream buffering facilities altogether by using
the low-level input and output functions that operate on file
descriptors instead. *Note Low-Level I/O::.
* Menu:
* Buffering Concepts:: Terminology is defined here.
* Flushing Buffers:: How to ensure that output buffers are flushed.
* Controlling Buffering:: How to specify what kind of buffering to use.

File: libc.info, Node: Buffering Concepts, Next: Flushing Buffers, Up: Stream Buffering
12.20.1 Buffering Concepts
--------------------------
There are three different kinds of buffering strategies:
• Characters written to or read from an "unbuffered" stream are
transmitted individually to or from the file as soon as possible.
• Characters written to a "line buffered" stream are transmitted to
the file in blocks when a newline character is encountered.
• Characters written to or read from a "fully buffered" stream are
transmitted to or from the file in blocks of arbitrary size.
Newly opened streams are normally fully buffered, with one exception:
a stream connected to an interactive device such as a terminal is
initially line buffered. *Note Controlling Buffering::, for information
on how to select a different kind of buffering. Usually the automatic
selection gives you the most convenient kind of buffering for the file
or device you open.
The use of line buffering for interactive devices implies that output
messages ending in a newline will appear immediately—which is usually
what you want. Output that doesnt end in a newline might or might not
show up immediately, so if you want them to appear immediately, you
should flush buffered output explicitly with fflush, as described in
*note Flushing Buffers::.

File: libc.info, Node: Flushing Buffers, Next: Controlling Buffering, Prev: Buffering Concepts, Up: Stream Buffering
12.20.2 Flushing Buffers
------------------------
"Flushing" output on a buffered stream means transmitting all
accumulated characters to the file. There are many circumstances when
buffered output on a stream is flushed automatically:
• When you try to do output and the output buffer is full.
• When the stream is closed. *Note Closing Streams::.
• When the program terminates by calling exit. *Note Normal
Termination::.
• When a newline is written, if the stream is line buffered.
• Whenever an input operation on _any_ stream actually reads data
from its file.
If you want to flush the buffered output at another time, call
fflush, which is declared in the header file stdio.h.
-- Function: int fflush (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function causes any buffered output on STREAM to be delivered
to the file. If STREAM is a null pointer, then fflush causes
buffered output on _all_ open output streams to be flushed.
This function returns EOF if a write error occurs, or zero
otherwise.
-- Function: int fflush_unlocked (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:stream | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe
corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The fflush_unlocked function is equivalent to the fflush
function except that it does not implicitly lock the stream.
The fflush function can be used to flush all streams currently
opened. While this is useful in some situations it does often more than
necessary since it might be done in situations when terminal input is
required and the program wants to be sure that all output is visible on
the terminal. But this means that only line buffered streams have to be
flushed. Solaris introduced a function especially for this. It was
always available in the GNU C Library in some form but never officially
exported.
-- Function: void _flushlbf (void)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The _flushlbf function flushes all line buffered streams
currently opened.
This function is declared in the stdio_ext.h header.
*Compatibility Note:* Some brain-damaged operating systems have been
known to be so thoroughly fixated on line-oriented input and output that
flushing a line buffered stream causes a newline to be written!
Fortunately, this “feature” seems to be becoming less common. You do
not need to worry about this with the GNU C Library.
In some situations it might be useful to not flush the output pending
for a stream but instead simply forget it. If transmission is costly
and the output is not needed anymore this is valid reasoning. In this
situation a non-standard function introduced in Solaris and available in
the GNU C Library can be used.
-- Function: void __fpurge (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:stream | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe
corrupt | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The __fpurge function causes the buffer of the stream STREAM to
be emptied. If the stream is currently in read mode all input in
the buffer is lost. If the stream is in output mode the buffered
output is not written to the device (or whatever other underlying
storage) and the buffer the cleared.
This function is declared in stdio_ext.h.

File: libc.info, Node: Controlling Buffering, Prev: Flushing Buffers, Up: Stream Buffering
12.20.3 Controlling Which Kind of Buffering
-------------------------------------------
After opening a stream (but before any other operations have been
performed on it), you can explicitly specify what kind of buffering you
want it to have using the setvbuf function.
The facilities listed in this section are declared in the header file
stdio.h.
-- Function: int setvbuf (FILE *STREAM, char *BUF, int MODE, size_t
SIZE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is used to specify that the stream STREAM should have
the buffering mode MODE, which can be either _IOFBF (for full
buffering), _IOLBF (for line buffering), or _IONBF (for
unbuffered input/output).
If you specify a null pointer as the BUF argument, then setvbuf
allocates a buffer itself using malloc. This buffer will be
freed when you close the stream.
Otherwise, BUF should be a character array that can hold at least
SIZE characters. You should not free the space for this array as
long as the stream remains open and this array remains its buffer.
You should usually either allocate it statically, or malloc
(*note Unconstrained Allocation::) the buffer. Using an automatic
array is not a good idea unless you close the file before exiting
the block that declares the array.
While the array remains a stream buffer, the stream I/O functions
will use the buffer for their internal purposes. You shouldnt try
to access the values in the array directly while the stream is
using it for buffering.
The setvbuf function returns zero on success, or a nonzero value
if the value of MODE is not valid or if the request could not be
honored.
-- Macro: int _IOFBF
The value of this macro is an integer constant expression that can
be used as the MODE argument to the setvbuf function to specify
that the stream should be fully buffered.
-- Macro: int _IOLBF
The value of this macro is an integer constant expression that can
be used as the MODE argument to the setvbuf function to specify
that the stream should be line buffered.
-- Macro: int _IONBF
The value of this macro is an integer constant expression that can
be used as the MODE argument to the setvbuf function to specify
that the stream should be unbuffered.
-- Macro: int BUFSIZ
The value of this macro is an integer constant expression that is
good to use for the SIZE argument to setvbuf. This value is
guaranteed to be at least 256.
The value of BUFSIZ is chosen on each system so as to make stream
I/O efficient. So it is a good idea to use BUFSIZ as the size
for the buffer when you call setvbuf.
Actually, you can get an even better value to use for the buffer
size by means of the fstat system call: it is found in the
st_blksize field of the file attributes. *Note Attribute
Meanings::.
Sometimes people also use BUFSIZ as the allocation size of
buffers used for related purposes, such as strings used to receive
a line of input with fgets (*note Character Input::). There is
no particular reason to use BUFSIZ for this instead of any other
integer, except that it might lead to doing I/O in chunks of an
efficient size.
-- Function: void setbuf (FILE *STREAM, char *BUF)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
If BUF is a null pointer, the effect of this function is equivalent
to calling setvbuf with a MODE argument of _IONBF. Otherwise,
it is equivalent to calling setvbuf with BUF, and a MODE of
_IOFBF and a SIZE argument of BUFSIZ.
The setbuf function is provided for compatibility with old code;
use setvbuf in all new programs.
-- Function: void setbuffer (FILE *STREAM, char *BUF, size_t SIZE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
If BUF is a null pointer, this function makes STREAM unbuffered.
Otherwise, it makes STREAM fully buffered using BUF as the buffer.
The SIZE argument specifies the length of BUF.
This function is provided for compatibility with old BSD code. Use
setvbuf instead.
-- Function: void setlinebuf (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt
| *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function makes STREAM be line buffered, and allocates the
buffer for you.
This function is provided for compatibility with old BSD code. Use
setvbuf instead.
It is possible to query whether a given stream is line buffered or
not using a non-standard function introduced in Solaris and available in
the GNU C Library.
-- Function: int __flbf (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The __flbf function will return a nonzero value in case the
stream STREAM is line buffered. Otherwise the return value is
zero.
This function is declared in the stdio_ext.h header.
Two more extensions allow to determine the size of the buffer and how
much of it is used. These functions were also introduced in Solaris.
-- Function: size_t __fbufsize (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:stream | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Safe |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The __fbufsize function return the size of the buffer in the
stream STREAM. This value can be used to optimize the use of the
stream.
This function is declared in the stdio_ext.h header.
-- Function: size_t __fpending (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:stream | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Safe |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The __fpending function returns the number of bytes currently in
the output buffer. For wide-oriented stream the measuring unit is
wide characters. This function should not be used on buffers in
read mode or opened read-only.
This function is declared in the stdio_ext.h header.

File: libc.info, Node: Other Kinds of Streams, Next: Formatted Messages, Prev: Stream Buffering, Up: I/O on Streams
12.21 Other Kinds of Streams
============================
The GNU C Library provides ways for you to define additional kinds of
streams that do not necessarily correspond to an open file.
One such type of stream takes input from or writes output to a
string. These kinds of streams are used internally to implement the
sprintf and sscanf functions. You can also create such a stream
explicitly, using the functions described in *note String Streams::.
More generally, you can define streams that do input/output to
arbitrary objects using functions supplied by your program. This
protocol is discussed in *note Custom Streams::.
*Portability Note:* The facilities described in this section are
specific to GNU. Other systems or C implementations might or might not
provide equivalent functionality.
* Menu:
* String Streams:: Streams that get data from or put data in
a string or memory buffer.
* Custom Streams:: Defining your own streams with an arbitrary
input data source and/or output data sink.

File: libc.info, Node: String Streams, Next: Custom Streams, Up: Other Kinds of Streams
12.21.1 String Streams
----------------------
The fmemopen and open_memstream functions allow you to do I/O to a
string or memory buffer. These facilities are declared in stdio.h.
-- Function: FILE * fmemopen (void *BUF, size_t SIZE, const char
*OPENTYPE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap lock | AC-Unsafe mem lock |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function opens a stream that allows the access specified by
the OPENTYPE argument, that reads from or writes to the buffer
specified by the argument BUF. This array must be at least SIZE
bytes long.
If you specify a null pointer as the BUF argument, fmemopen
dynamically allocates an array SIZE bytes long (as with malloc;
*note Unconstrained Allocation::). This is really only useful if
you are going to write things to the buffer and then read them back
in again, because you have no way of actually getting a pointer to
the buffer (for this, try open_memstream, below). The buffer is
freed when the stream is closed.
The argument OPENTYPE is the same as in fopen (*note Opening
Streams::). If the OPENTYPE specifies append mode, then the
initial file position is set to the first null character in the
buffer. Otherwise the initial file position is at the beginning of
the buffer.
When a stream open for writing is flushed or closed, a null
character (zero byte) is written at the end of the buffer if it
fits. You should add an extra byte to the SIZE argument to account
for this. Attempts to write more than SIZE bytes to the buffer
result in an error.
For a stream open for reading, null characters (zero bytes) in the
buffer do not count as “end of file”. Read operations indicate end
of file only when the file position advances past SIZE bytes. So,
if you want to read characters from a null-terminated string, you
should supply the length of the string as the SIZE argument.
Here is an example of using fmemopen to create a stream for reading
from a string:
#include <stdio.h>
static char buffer[] = "foobar";
int
main (void)
{
int ch;
FILE *stream;
stream = fmemopen (buffer, strlen (buffer), "r");
while ((ch = fgetc (stream)) != EOF)
printf ("Got %c\n", ch);
fclose (stream);
return 0;
}
This program produces the following output:
Got f
Got o
Got o
Got b
Got a
Got r
-- Function: FILE * open_memstream (char **PTR, size_t *SIZELOC)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function opens a stream for writing to a buffer. The buffer
is allocated dynamically and grown as necessary, using malloc.
After youve closed the stream, this buffer is your responsibility
to clean up using free or realloc. *Note Unconstrained
Allocation::.
When the stream is closed with fclose or flushed with fflush,
the locations PTR and SIZELOC are updated to contain the pointer to
the buffer and its size. The values thus stored remain valid only
as long as no further output on the stream takes place. If you do
more output, you must flush the stream again to store new values
before you use them again.
A null character is written at the end of the buffer. This null
character is _not_ included in the size value stored at SIZELOC.
You can move the streams file position with fseek or fseeko
(*note File Positioning::). Moving the file position past the end
of the data already written fills the intervening space with
zeroes.
Here is an example of using open_memstream:
#include <stdio.h>
int
main (void)
{
char *bp;
size_t size;
FILE *stream;
stream = open_memstream (&bp, &size);
fprintf (stream, "hello");
fflush (stream);
printf ("buf = `%s', size = %d\n", bp, size);
fprintf (stream, ", world");
fclose (stream);
printf ("buf = `%s', size = %d\n", bp, size);
return 0;
}
This program produces the following output:
buf = `hello', size = 5
buf = `hello, world', size = 12

File: libc.info, Node: Custom Streams, Prev: String Streams, Up: Other Kinds of Streams
12.21.2 Programming Your Own Custom Streams
-------------------------------------------
This section describes how you can make a stream that gets input from an
arbitrary data source or writes output to an arbitrary data sink
programmed by you. We call these "custom streams". The functions and
types described here are all GNU extensions.
* Menu:
* Streams and Cookies:: The "cookie" records where to fetch or
store data that is read or written.
* Hook Functions:: How you should define the four "hook
functions" that a custom stream needs.

File: libc.info, Node: Streams and Cookies, Next: Hook Functions, Up: Custom Streams
12.21.2.1 Custom Streams and Cookies
....................................
Inside every custom stream is a special object called the "cookie".
This is an object supplied by you which records where to fetch or store
the data read or written. It is up to you to define a data type to use
for the cookie. The stream functions in the library never refer
directly to its contents, and they dont even know what the type is;
they record its address with type void *.
To implement a custom stream, you must specify _how_ to fetch or
store the data in the specified place. You do this by defining "hook
functions" to read, write, change “file position”, and close the stream.
All four of these functions will be passed the streams cookie so they
can tell where to fetch or store the data. The library functions dont
know whats inside the cookie, but your functions will know.
When you create a custom stream, you must specify the cookie pointer,
and also the four hook functions stored in a structure of type
cookie_io_functions_t.
These facilities are declared in stdio.h.
-- Data Type: cookie_io_functions_t
This is a structure type that holds the functions that define the
communications protocol between the stream and its cookie. It has
the following members:
cookie_read_function_t *read
This is the function that reads data from the cookie. If the
value is a null pointer instead of a function, then read
operations on this stream always return EOF.
cookie_write_function_t *write
This is the function that writes data to the cookie. If the
value is a null pointer instead of a function, then data
written to the stream is discarded.
cookie_seek_function_t *seek
This is the function that performs the equivalent of file
positioning on the cookie. If the value is a null pointer
instead of a function, calls to fseek or fseeko on this
stream can only seek to locations within the buffer; any
attempt to seek outside the buffer will return an ESPIPE
error.
cookie_close_function_t *close
This function performs any appropriate cleanup on the cookie
when closing the stream. If the value is a null pointer
instead of a function, nothing special is done to close the
cookie when the stream is closed.
-- Function: FILE * fopencookie (void *COOKIE, const char *OPENTYPE,
cookie_io_functions_t IO-FUNCTIONS)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap lock | AC-Unsafe mem lock |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function actually creates the stream for communicating with
the COOKIE using the functions in the IO-FUNCTIONS argument. The
OPENTYPE argument is interpreted as for fopen; see *note Opening
Streams::. (But note that the “truncate on open” option is
ignored.) The new stream is fully buffered.
The fopencookie function returns the newly created stream, or a
null pointer in case of an error.

File: libc.info, Node: Hook Functions, Prev: Streams and Cookies, Up: Custom Streams
12.21.2.2 Custom Stream Hook Functions
......................................
Here are more details on how you should define the four hook functions
that a custom stream needs.
You should define the function to read data from the cookie as:
ssize_t READER (void *COOKIE, char *BUFFER, size_t SIZE)
This is very similar to the read function; see *note I/O
Primitives::. Your function should transfer up to SIZE bytes into the
BUFFER, and return the number of bytes read, or zero to indicate
end-of-file. You can return a value of -1 to indicate an error.
You should define the function to write data to the cookie as:
ssize_t WRITER (void *COOKIE, const char *BUFFER, size_t SIZE)
This is very similar to the write function; see *note I/O
Primitives::. Your function should transfer up to SIZE bytes from the
buffer, and return the number of bytes written. You can return a value
of 0 to indicate an error. You must not return any negative value.
You should define the function to perform seek operations on the
cookie as:
int SEEKER (void *COOKIE, off64_t *POSITION, int WHENCE)
For this function, the POSITION and WHENCE arguments are interpreted
as for fgetpos; see *note Portable Positioning::.
After doing the seek operation, your function should store the
resulting file position relative to the beginning of the file in
POSITION. Your function should return a value of 0 on success and
-1 to indicate an error.
You should define the function to do cleanup operations on the cookie
appropriate for closing the stream as:
int CLEANER (void *COOKIE)
Your function should return -1 to indicate an error, and 0
otherwise.
-- Data Type: cookie_read_function_t
This is the data type that the read function for a custom stream
should have. If you declare the function as shown above, this is
the type it will have.
-- Data Type: cookie_write_function_t
The data type of the write function for a custom stream.
-- Data Type: cookie_seek_function_t
The data type of the seek function for a custom stream.
-- Data Type: cookie_close_function_t
The data type of the close function for a custom stream.

File: libc.info, Node: Formatted Messages, Prev: Other Kinds of Streams, Up: I/O on Streams
12.22 Formatted Messages
========================
On systems which are based on System V messages of programs (especially
the system tools) are printed in a strict form using the fmtmsg
function. The uniformity sometimes helps the user to interpret messages
and the strictness tests of the fmtmsg function ensure that the
programmer follows some minimal requirements.
* Menu:
* Printing Formatted Messages:: The fmtmsg function.
* Adding Severity Classes:: Add more severity classes.
* Example:: How to use fmtmsg and addseverity.

File: libc.info, Node: Printing Formatted Messages, Next: Adding Severity Classes, Up: Formatted Messages
12.22.1 Printing Formatted Messages
-----------------------------------
Messages can be printed to standard error and/or to the console. To
select the destination the programmer can use the following two values,
bitwise OR combined if wanted, for the CLASSIFICATION parameter of
fmtmsg:
MM_PRINT
Display the message in standard error.
MM_CONSOLE
Display the message on the system console.
The erroneous piece of the system can be signalled by exactly one of
the following values which also is bitwise ORed with the CLASSIFICATION
parameter to fmtmsg:
MM_HARD
The source of the condition is some hardware.
MM_SOFT
The source of the condition is some software.
MM_FIRM
The source of the condition is some firmware.
A third component of the CLASSIFICATION parameter to fmtmsg can
describe the part of the system which detects the problem. This is done
by using exactly one of the following values:
MM_APPL
The erroneous condition is detected by the application.
MM_UTIL
The erroneous condition is detected by a utility.
MM_OPSYS
The erroneous condition is detected by the operating system.
A last component of CLASSIFICATION can signal the results of this
message. Exactly one of the following values can be used:
MM_RECOVER
It is a recoverable error.
MM_NRECOV
It is a non-recoverable error.
-- Function: int fmtmsg (long int CLASSIFICATION, const char *LABEL,
int SEVERITY, const char *TEXT, const char *ACTION, const char
*TAG)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
Display a message described by its parameters on the device(s)
specified in the CLASSIFICATION parameter. The LABEL parameter
identifies the source of the message. The string should consist of
two colon separated parts where the first part has not more than 10
and the second part not more than 14 characters. The TEXT
parameter describes the condition of the error, the ACTION
parameter possible steps to recover from the error and the TAG
parameter is a reference to the online documentation where more
information can be found. It should contain the LABEL value and a
unique identification number.
Each of the parameters can be a special value which means this
value is to be omitted. The symbolic names for these values are:
MM_NULLLBL
Ignore LABEL parameter.
MM_NULLSEV
Ignore SEVERITY parameter.
MM_NULLMC
Ignore CLASSIFICATION parameter. This implies that nothing is
actually printed.
MM_NULLTXT
Ignore TEXT parameter.
MM_NULLACT
Ignore ACTION parameter.
MM_NULLTAG
Ignore TAG parameter.
There is another way certain fields can be omitted from the output
to standard error. This is described below in the description of
environment variables influencing the behavior.
The SEVERITY parameter can have one of the values in the following
table:
MM_NOSEV
Nothing is printed, this value is the same as MM_NULLSEV.
MM_HALT
This value is printed as HALT.
MM_ERROR
This value is printed as ERROR.
MM_WARNING
This value is printed as WARNING.
MM_INFO
This value is printed as INFO.
The numeric value of these five macros are between 0 and 4.
Using the environment variable SEV_LEVEL or using the
addseverity function one can add more severity levels with their
corresponding string to print. This is described below (*note
Adding Severity Classes::).
If no parameter is ignored the output looks like this:
LABEL: SEVERITY-STRING: TEXT
TO FIX: ACTION TAG
The colons, new line characters and the TO FIX string are
inserted if necessary, i.e., if the corresponding parameter is not
ignored.
This function is specified in the X/Open Portability Guide. It is
also available on all systems derived from System V.
The function returns the value MM_OK if no error occurred. If
only the printing to standard error failed, it returns MM_NOMSG.
If printing to the console fails, it returns MM_NOCON. If
nothing is printed MM_NOTOK is returned. Among situations where
all outputs fail this last value is also returned if a parameter
value is incorrect.
There are two environment variables which influence the behavior of
fmtmsg. The first is MSGVERB. It is used to control the output
actually happening on standard error (_not_ the console output). Each
of the five fields can explicitly be enabled. To do this the user has
to put the MSGVERB variable with a format like the following in the
environment before calling the fmtmsg function the first time:
MSGVERB=KEYWORD[:KEYWORD[:…]]
Valid KEYWORDs are label, severity, text, action, and tag.
If the environment variable is not given or is the empty string, a not
supported keyword is given or the value is somehow else invalid, no part
of the message is masked out.
The second environment variable which influences the behavior of
fmtmsg is SEV_LEVEL. This variable and the change in the behavior
of fmtmsg is not specified in the X/Open Portability Guide. It is
available in System V systems, though. It can be used to introduce new
severity levels. By default, only the five severity levels described
above are available. Any other numeric value would make fmtmsg print
nothing.
If the user puts SEV_LEVEL with a format like
SEV_LEVEL=[DESCRIPTION[:DESCRIPTION[:…]]]
in the environment of the process before the first call to fmtmsg,
where DESCRIPTION has a value of the form
SEVERITY-KEYWORD,LEVEL,PRINTSTRING
The SEVERITY-KEYWORD part is not used by fmtmsg but it has to be
present. The LEVEL part is a string representation of a number. The
numeric value must be a number greater than 4. This value must be used
in the SEVERITY parameter of fmtmsg to select this class. It is not
possible to overwrite any of the predefined classes. The PRINTSTRING is
the string printed when a message of this class is processed by fmtmsg
(see above, fmtsmg does not print the numeric value but instead the
string representation).

File: libc.info, Node: Adding Severity Classes, Next: Example, Prev: Printing Formatted Messages, Up: Formatted Messages
12.22.2 Adding Severity Classes
-------------------------------
There is another possibility to introduce severity classes besides using
the environment variable SEV_LEVEL. This simplifies the task of
introducing new classes in a running program. One could use the
setenv or putenv function to set the environment variable, but this
is toilsome.
-- Function: int addseverity (int SEVERITY, const char *STRING)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap lock | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function allows the introduction of new severity classes which
can be addressed by the SEVERITY parameter of the fmtmsg
function. The SEVERITY parameter of addseverity must match the
value for the parameter with the same name of fmtmsg, and STRING
is the string printed in the actual messages instead of the numeric
value.
If STRING is NULL the severity class with the numeric value
according to SEVERITY is removed.
It is not possible to overwrite or remove one of the default
severity classes. All calls to addseverity with SEVERITY set to
one of the values for the default classes will fail.
The return value is MM_OK if the task was successfully performed.
If the return value is MM_NOTOK something went wrong. This could
mean that no more memory is available or a class is not available
when it has to be removed.
This function is not specified in the X/Open Portability Guide
although the fmtsmg function is. It is available on System V
systems.

File: libc.info, Node: Example, Prev: Adding Severity Classes, Up: Formatted Messages
12.22.3 How to use fmtmsg and addseverity
---------------------------------------------
Here is a simple example program to illustrate the use of the both
functions described in this section.
#include <fmtmsg.h>
int
main (void)
{
addseverity (5, "NOTE2");
fmtmsg (MM_PRINT, "only1field", MM_INFO, "text2", "action2", "tag2");
fmtmsg (MM_PRINT, "UX:cat", 5, "invalid syntax", "refer to manual",
"UX:cat:001");
fmtmsg (MM_PRINT, "label:foo", 6, "text", "action", "tag");
return 0;
}
The second call to fmtmsg illustrates a use of this function as it
usually occurs on System V systems, which heavily use this function. It
seems worthwhile to give a short explanation here of how this system
works on System V. The value of the LABEL field (UX:cat) says that the
error occurred in the Unix program cat. The explanation of the error
follows and the value for the ACTION parameter is "refer to manual".
One could be more specific here, if necessary. The TAG field contains,
as proposed above, the value of the string given for the LABEL
parameter, and additionally a unique ID (001 in this case). For a GNU
environment this string could contain a reference to the corresponding
node in the Info page for the program.
Running this program without specifying the MSGVERB and SEV_LEVEL
function produces the following output:
UX:cat: NOTE2: invalid syntax
TO FIX: refer to manual UX:cat:001
We see the different fields of the message and how the extra glue
(the colons and the TO FIX string) are printed. But only one of the
three calls to fmtmsg produced output. The first call does not print
anything because the LABEL parameter is not in the correct form. The
string must contain two fields, separated by a colon (*note Printing
Formatted Messages::). The third fmtmsg call produced no output since
the class with the numeric value 6 is not defined. Although a class
with numeric value 5 is also not defined by default, the call to
addseverity introduces it and the second call to fmtmsg produces the
above output.
When we change the environment of the program to contain
SEV_LEVEL=XXX,6,NOTE when running it we get a different result:
UX:cat: NOTE2: invalid syntax
TO FIX: refer to manual UX:cat:001
label:foo: NOTE: text
TO FIX: action tag
Now the third call to fmtmsg produced some output and we see how
the string NOTE from the environment variable appears in the message.
Now we can reduce the output by specifying which fields we are
interested in. If we additionally set the environment variable
MSGVERB to the value severity:label:action we get the following
output:
UX:cat: NOTE2
TO FIX: refer to manual
label:foo: NOTE
TO FIX: action
I.e., the output produced by the TEXT and the TAG parameters to fmtmsg
vanished. Please also note that now there is no colon after the NOTE
and NOTE2 strings in the output. This is not necessary since there is
no more output on this line because the text is missing.

File: libc.info, Node: Low-Level I/O, Next: File System Interface, Prev: I/O on Streams, Up: Top
13 Low-Level Input/Output
*************************
This chapter describes functions for performing low-level input/output
operations on file descriptors. These functions include the primitives
for the higher-level I/O functions described in *note I/O on Streams::,
as well as functions for performing low-level control operations for
which there are no equivalents on streams.
Stream-level I/O is more flexible and usually more convenient;
therefore, programmers generally use the descriptor-level functions only
when necessary. These are some of the usual reasons:
• For reading binary files in large chunks.
• For reading an entire file into core before parsing it.
• To perform operations other than data transfer, which can only be
done with a descriptor. (You can use fileno to get the
descriptor corresponding to a stream.)
• To pass descriptors to a child process. (The child can create its
own stream to use a descriptor that it inherits, but cannot inherit
a stream directly.)
* Menu:
* Opening and Closing Files:: How to open and close file
descriptors.
* I/O Primitives:: Reading and writing data.
* File Position Primitive:: Setting a descriptors file
position.
* Descriptors and Streams:: Converting descriptor to stream
or vice-versa.
* Stream/Descriptor Precautions:: Precautions needed if you use both
descriptors and streams.
* Scatter-Gather:: Fast I/O to discontinuous buffers.
* Memory-mapped I/O:: Using files like memory.
* Waiting for I/O:: How to check for input or output
on multiple file descriptors.
* Synchronizing I/O:: Making sure all I/O actions completed.
* Asynchronous I/O:: Perform I/O in parallel.
* Control Operations:: Various other operations on file
descriptors.
* Duplicating Descriptors:: Fcntl commands for duplicating
file descriptors.
* Descriptor Flags:: Fcntl commands for manipulating
flags associated with file
descriptors.
* File Status Flags:: Fcntl commands for manipulating
flags associated with open files.
* File Locks:: Fcntl commands for implementing
file locking.
* Open File Description Locks:: Fcntl commands for implementing
open file description locking.
* Open File Description Locks Example:: An example of open file description lock
usage
* Interrupt Input:: Getting an asynchronous signal when
input arrives.
* IOCTLs:: Generic I/O Control operations.

File: libc.info, Node: Opening and Closing Files, Next: I/O Primitives, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.1 Opening and Closing Files
==============================
This section describes the primitives for opening and closing files
using file descriptors. The open and creat functions are declared
in the header file fcntl.h, while close is declared in unistd.h.
-- Function: int open (const char *FILENAME, int FLAGS[, mode_t MODE])
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe fd | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The open function creates and returns a new file descriptor for
the file named by FILENAME. Initially, the file position indicator
for the file is at the beginning of the file. The argument MODE
(*note Permission Bits::) is used only when a file is created, but
it doesnt hurt to supply the argument in any case.
The FLAGS argument controls how the file is to be opened. This is
a bit mask; you create the value by the bitwise OR of the
appropriate parameters (using the | operator in C). *Note File
Status Flags::, for the parameters available.
The normal return value from open is a non-negative integer file
descriptor. In the case of an error, a value of -1 is returned
instead. In addition to the usual file name errors (*note File
Name Errors::), the following errno error conditions are defined
for this function:
EACCES
The file exists but is not readable/writable as requested by
the FLAGS argument, the file does not exist and the directory
is unwritable so it cannot be created.
EEXIST
Both O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set, and the named file
already exists.
EINTR
The open operation was interrupted by a signal. *Note
Interrupted Primitives::.
EISDIR
The FLAGS argument specified write access, and the file is a
directory.
EMFILE
The process has too many files open. The maximum number of
file descriptors is controlled by the RLIMIT_NOFILE resource
limit; *note Limits on Resources::.
ENFILE
The entire system, or perhaps the file system which contains
the directory, cannot support any additional open files at the
moment. (This problem cannot happen on GNU/Hurd systems.)
ENOENT
The named file does not exist, and O_CREAT is not specified.
ENOSPC
The directory or file system that would contain the new file
cannot be extended, because there is no disk space left.
ENXIO
O_NONBLOCK and O_WRONLY are both set in the FLAGS
argument, the file named by FILENAME is a FIFO (*note Pipes
and FIFOs::), and no process has the file open for reading.
EROFS
The file resides on a read-only file system and any of
O_WRONLY, O_RDWR, and O_TRUNC are set in the FLAGS
argument, or O_CREAT is set and the file does not already
exist.
If on a 32 bit machine the sources are translated with
_FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 the function open returns a file
descriptor opened in the large file mode which enables the file
handling functions to use files up to 2^63 bytes in size and offset
from 2^63 to 2^63. This happens transparently for the user since
all of the lowlevel file handling functions are equally replaced.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
open is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources stay
allocated until the program ends. To avoid this calls to open
should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The open function is the underlying primitive for the fopen and
freopen functions, that create streams.
-- Function: int open64 (const char *FILENAME, int FLAGS[, mode_t
MODE])
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe fd | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to open. It returns a file descriptor
which can be used to access the file named by FILENAME. The only
difference is that on 32 bit systems the file is opened in the
large file mode. I.e., file length and file offsets can exceed 31
bits.
When the sources are translated with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is actually available under the name open. I.e., the
new, extended API using 64 bit file sizes and offsets transparently
replaces the old API.
-- Obsolete function: int creat (const char *FILENAME, mode_t MODE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe fd | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is obsolete. The call:
creat (FILENAME, MODE)
is equivalent to:
open (FILENAME, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, MODE)
If on a 32 bit machine the sources are translated with
_FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 the function creat returns a file
descriptor opened in the large file mode which enables the file
handling functions to use files up to 2^63 in size and offset from
2^63 to 2^63. This happens transparently for the user since all
of the lowlevel file handling functions are equally replaced.
-- Obsolete function: int creat64 (const char *FILENAME, mode_t MODE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe fd | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to creat. It returns a file descriptor
which can be used to access the file named by FILENAME. The only
the difference is that on 32 bit systems the file is opened in the
large file mode. I.e., file length and file offsets can exceed 31
bits.
To use this file descriptor one must not use the normal operations
but instead the counterparts named *64, e.g., read64.
When the sources are translated with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is actually available under the name open. I.e., the
new, extended API using 64 bit file sizes and offsets transparently
replaces the old API.
-- Function: int close (int FILEDES)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe fd | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The function close closes the file descriptor FILEDES. Closing a
file has the following consequences:
• The file descriptor is deallocated.
• Any record locks owned by the process on the file are
unlocked.
• When all file descriptors associated with a pipe or FIFO have
been closed, any unread data is discarded.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
close is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources
stay allocated until the program ends. To avoid this, calls to
close should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The normal return value from close is 0; a value of -1 is
returned in case of failure. The following errno error
conditions are defined for this function:
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is not a valid file descriptor.
EINTR
The close call was interrupted by a signal. *Note
Interrupted Primitives::. Here is an example of how to handle
EINTR properly:
TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (close (desc));
ENOSPC
EIO
EDQUOT
When the file is accessed by NFS, these errors from write
can sometimes not be detected until close. *Note I/O
Primitives::, for details on their meaning.
Please note that there is _no_ separate close64 function. This
is not necessary since this function does not determine nor depend
on the mode of the file. The kernel which performs the close
operation knows which mode the descriptor is used for and can
handle this situation.
To close a stream, call fclose (*note Closing Streams::) instead of
trying to close its underlying file descriptor with close. This
flushes any buffered output and updates the stream object to indicate
that it is closed.

File: libc.info, Node: I/O Primitives, Next: File Position Primitive, Prev: Opening and Closing Files, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.2 Input and Output Primitives
================================
This section describes the functions for performing primitive input and
output operations on file descriptors: read, write, and lseek.
These functions are declared in the header file unistd.h.
-- Data Type: ssize_t
This data type is used to represent the sizes of blocks that can be
read or written in a single operation. It is similar to size_t,
but must be a signed type.
-- Function: ssize_t read (int FILEDES, void *BUFFER, size_t SIZE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The read function reads up to SIZE bytes from the file with
descriptor FILEDES, storing the results in the BUFFER. (This is
not necessarily a character string, and no terminating null
character is added.)
The return value is the number of bytes actually read. This might
be less than SIZE; for example, if there arent that many bytes
left in the file or if there arent that many bytes immediately
available. The exact behavior depends on what kind of file it is.
Note that reading less than SIZE bytes is not an error.
A value of zero indicates end-of-file (except if the value of the
SIZE argument is also zero). This is not considered an error. If
you keep calling read while at end-of-file, it will keep
returning zero and doing nothing else.
If read returns at least one character, there is no way you can
tell whether end-of-file was reached. But if you did reach the
end, the next read will return zero.
In case of an error, read returns -1. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this function:
EAGAIN
Normally, when no input is immediately available, read waits
for some input. But if the O_NONBLOCK flag is set for the
file (*note File Status Flags::), read returns immediately
without reading any data, and reports this error.
*Compatibility Note:* Most versions of BSD Unix use a
different error code for this: EWOULDBLOCK. In the GNU C
Library, EWOULDBLOCK is an alias for EAGAIN, so it doesnt
matter which name you use.
On some systems, reading a large amount of data from a
character special file can also fail with EAGAIN if the
kernel cannot find enough physical memory to lock down the
users pages. This is limited to devices that transfer with
direct memory access into the users memory, which means it
does not include terminals, since they always use separate
buffers inside the kernel. This problem never happens on
GNU/Hurd systems.
Any condition that could result in EAGAIN can instead result
in a successful read which returns fewer bytes than
requested. Calling read again immediately would result in
EAGAIN.
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is not a valid file descriptor, or is not
open for reading.
EINTR
read was interrupted by a signal while it was waiting for
input. *Note Interrupted Primitives::. A signal will not
necessary cause read to return EINTR; it may instead
result in a successful read which returns fewer bytes than
requested.
EIO
For many devices, and for disk files, this error code
indicates a hardware error.
EIO also occurs when a background process tries to read from
the controlling terminal, and the normal action of stopping
the process by sending it a SIGTTIN signal isnt working.
This might happen if the signal is being blocked or ignored,
or because the process group is orphaned. *Note Job
Control::, for more information about job control, and *note
Signal Handling::, for information about signals.
EINVAL
In some systems, when reading from a character or block
device, position and size offsets must be aligned to a
particular block size. This error indicates that the offsets
were not properly aligned.
Please note that there is no function named read64. This is not
necessary since this function does not directly modify or handle
the possibly wide file offset. Since the kernel handles this state
internally, the read function can be used for all cases.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
read is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources stay
allocated until the program ends. To avoid this, calls to read
should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The read function is the underlying primitive for all of the
functions that read from streams, such as fgetc.
-- Function: ssize_t pread (int FILEDES, void *BUFFER, size_t SIZE,
off_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The pread function is similar to the read function. The first
three arguments are identical, and the return values and error
codes also correspond.
The difference is the fourth argument and its handling. The data
block is not read from the current position of the file descriptor
filedes. Instead the data is read from the file starting at
position OFFSET. The position of the file descriptor itself is not
affected by the operation. The value is the same as before the
call.
When the source file is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 the
pread function is in fact pread64 and the type off_t has 64
bits, which makes it possible to handle files up to 2^63 bytes in
length.
The return value of pread describes the number of bytes read. In
the error case it returns -1 like read does and the error codes
are also the same, with these additions:
EINVAL
The value given for OFFSET is negative and therefore illegal.
ESPIPE
The file descriptor FILEDES is associate with a pipe or a FIFO
and this device does not allow positioning of the file
pointer.
The function is an extension defined in the Unix Single
Specification version 2.
-- Function: ssize_t pread64 (int FILEDES, void *BUFFER, size_t SIZE,
off64_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to the pread function. The difference
is that the OFFSET parameter is of type off64_t instead of
off_t which makes it possible on 32 bit machines to address files
larger than 2^31 bytes and up to 2^63 bytes. The file descriptor
filedes must be opened using open64 since otherwise the large
offsets possible with off64_t will lead to errors with a
descriptor in small file mode.
When the source file is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on
a 32 bit machine this function is actually available under the name
pread and so transparently replaces the 32 bit interface.
-- Function: ssize_t write (int FILEDES, const void *BUFFER, size_t
SIZE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The write function writes up to SIZE bytes from BUFFER to the
file with descriptor FILEDES. The data in BUFFER is not
necessarily a character string and a null character is output like
any other character.
The return value is the number of bytes actually written. This may
be SIZE, but can always be smaller. Your program should always
call write in a loop, iterating until all the data is written.
Once write returns, the data is enqueued to be written and can be
read back right away, but it is not necessarily written out to
permanent storage immediately. You can use fsync when you need
to be sure your data has been permanently stored before continuing.
(It is more efficient for the system to batch up consecutive writes
and do them all at once when convenient. Normally they will always
be written to disk within a minute or less.) Modern systems
provide another function fdatasync which guarantees integrity
only for the file data and is therefore faster. You can use the
O_FSYNC open mode to make write always store the data to disk
before returning; *note Operating Modes::.
In the case of an error, write returns -1. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this function:
EAGAIN
Normally, write blocks until the write operation is
complete. But if the O_NONBLOCK flag is set for the file
(*note Control Operations::), it returns immediately without
writing any data and reports this error. An example of a
situation that might cause the process to block on output is
writing to a terminal device that supports flow control, where
output has been suspended by receipt of a STOP character.
*Compatibility Note:* Most versions of BSD Unix use a
different error code for this: EWOULDBLOCK. In the GNU C
Library, EWOULDBLOCK is an alias for EAGAIN, so it doesnt
matter which name you use.
On some systems, writing a large amount of data from a
character special file can also fail with EAGAIN if the
kernel cannot find enough physical memory to lock down the
users pages. This is limited to devices that transfer with
direct memory access into the users memory, which means it
does not include terminals, since they always use separate
buffers inside the kernel. This problem does not arise on
GNU/Hurd systems.
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is not a valid file descriptor, or is not
open for writing.
EFBIG
The size of the file would become larger than the
implementation can support.
EINTR
The write operation was interrupted by a signal while it was
blocked waiting for completion. A signal will not necessarily
cause write to return EINTR; it may instead result in a
successful write which writes fewer bytes than requested.
*Note Interrupted Primitives::.
EIO
For many devices, and for disk files, this error code
indicates a hardware error.
ENOSPC
The device containing the file is full.
EPIPE
This error is returned when you try to write to a pipe or FIFO
that isnt open for reading by any process. When this
happens, a SIGPIPE signal is also sent to the process; see
*note Signal Handling::.
EINVAL
In some systems, when writing to a character or block device,
position and size offsets must be aligned to a particular
block size. This error indicates that the offsets were not
properly aligned.
Unless you have arranged to prevent EINTR failures, you should
check errno after each failing call to write, and if the error
was EINTR, you should simply repeat the call. *Note Interrupted
Primitives::. The easy way to do this is with the macro
TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY, as follows:
nbytes = TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (write (desc, buffer, count));
Please note that there is no function named write64. This is not
necessary since this function does not directly modify or handle
the possibly wide file offset. Since the kernel handles this state
internally the write function can be used for all cases.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
write is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources
stay allocated until the program ends. To avoid this, calls to
write should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The write function is the underlying primitive for all of the
functions that write to streams, such as fputc.
-- Function: ssize_t pwrite (int FILEDES, const void *BUFFER, size_t
SIZE, off_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The pwrite function is similar to the write function. The
first three arguments are identical, and the return values and
error codes also correspond.
The difference is the fourth argument and its handling. The data
block is not written to the current position of the file descriptor
filedes. Instead the data is written to the file starting at
position OFFSET. The position of the file descriptor itself is not
affected by the operation. The value is the same as before the
call.
When the source file is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 the
pwrite function is in fact pwrite64 and the type off_t has 64
bits, which makes it possible to handle files up to 2^63 bytes in
length.
The return value of pwrite describes the number of written bytes.
In the error case it returns -1 like write does and the error
codes are also the same, with these additions:
EINVAL
The value given for OFFSET is negative and therefore illegal.
ESPIPE
The file descriptor FILEDES is associated with a pipe or a
FIFO and this device does not allow positioning of the file
pointer.
The function is an extension defined in the Unix Single
Specification version 2.
-- Function: ssize_t pwrite64 (int FILEDES, const void *BUFFER, size_t
SIZE, off64_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to the pwrite function. The difference
is that the OFFSET parameter is of type off64_t instead of
off_t which makes it possible on 32 bit machines to address files
larger than 2^31 bytes and up to 2^63 bytes. The file descriptor
filedes must be opened using open64 since otherwise the large
offsets possible with off64_t will lead to errors with a
descriptor in small file mode.
When the source file is compiled using _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on
a 32 bit machine this function is actually available under the name
pwrite and so transparently replaces the 32 bit interface.

File: libc.info, Node: File Position Primitive, Next: Descriptors and Streams, Prev: I/O Primitives, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.3 Setting the File Position of a Descriptor
==============================================
Just as you can set the file position of a stream with fseek, you can
set the file position of a descriptor with lseek. This specifies the
position in the file for the next read or write operation. *Note
File Positioning::, for more information on the file position and what
it means.
To read the current file position value from a descriptor, use lseek
(DESC, 0, SEEK_CUR).
-- Function: off_t lseek (int FILEDES, off_t OFFSET, int WHENCE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The lseek function is used to change the file position of the
file with descriptor FILEDES.
The WHENCE argument specifies how the OFFSET should be interpreted,
in the same way as for the fseek function, and it must be one of
the symbolic constants SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END.
SEEK_SET
Specifies that OFFSET is a count of characters from the
beginning of the file.
SEEK_CUR
Specifies that OFFSET is a count of characters from the
current file position. This count may be positive or
negative.
SEEK_END
Specifies that OFFSET is a count of characters from the end of
the file. A negative count specifies a position within the
current extent of the file; a positive count specifies a
position past the current end. If you set the position past
the current end, and actually write data, you will extend the
file with zeros up to that position.
The return value from lseek is normally the resulting file
position, measured in bytes from the beginning of the file. You
can use this feature together with SEEK_CUR to read the current
file position.
If you want to append to the file, setting the file position to the
current end of file with SEEK_END is not sufficient. Another
process may write more data after you seek but before you write,
extending the file so the position you write onto clobbers their
data. Instead, use the O_APPEND operating mode; *note Operating
Modes::.
You can set the file position past the current end of the file.
This does not by itself make the file longer; lseek never changes
the file. But subsequent output at that position will extend the
file. Characters between the previous end of file and the new
position are filled with zeros. Extending the file in this way can
create a “hole”: the blocks of zeros are not actually allocated on
disk, so the file takes up less space than it appears to; it is
then called a “sparse file”.
If the file position cannot be changed, or the operation is in some
way invalid, lseek returns a value of -1. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this function:
EBADF
The FILEDES is not a valid file descriptor.
EINVAL
The WHENCE argument value is not valid, or the resulting file
offset is not valid. A file offset is invalid.
ESPIPE
The FILEDES corresponds to an object that cannot be
positioned, such as a pipe, FIFO or terminal device. (POSIX.1
specifies this error only for pipes and FIFOs, but on GNU
systems, you always get ESPIPE if the object is not
seekable.)
When the source file is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 the
lseek function is in fact lseek64 and the type off_t has 64
bits which makes it possible to handle files up to 2^63 bytes in
length.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
lseek is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources
stay allocated until the program ends. To avoid this calls to
lseek should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The lseek function is the underlying primitive for the fseek,
fseeko, ftell, ftello and rewind functions, which operate
on streams instead of file descriptors.
-- Function: off64_t lseek64 (int FILEDES, off64_t OFFSET, int WHENCE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to the lseek function. The difference
is that the OFFSET parameter is of type off64_t instead of
off_t which makes it possible on 32 bit machines to address files
larger than 2^31 bytes and up to 2^63 bytes. The file descriptor
filedes must be opened using open64 since otherwise the large
offsets possible with off64_t will lead to errors with a
descriptor in small file mode.
When the source file is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on
a 32 bits machine this function is actually available under the
name lseek and so transparently replaces the 32 bit interface.
You can have multiple descriptors for the same file if you open the
file more than once, or if you duplicate a descriptor with dup.
Descriptors that come from separate calls to open have independent
file positions; using lseek on one descriptor has no effect on the
other. For example,
{
int d1, d2;
char buf[4];
d1 = open ("foo", O_RDONLY);
d2 = open ("foo", O_RDONLY);
lseek (d1, 1024, SEEK_SET);
read (d2, buf, 4);
}
will read the first four characters of the file foo. (The
error-checking code necessary for a real program has been omitted here
for brevity.)
By contrast, descriptors made by duplication share a common file
position with the original descriptor that was duplicated. Anything
which alters the file position of one of the duplicates, including
reading or writing data, affects all of them alike. Thus, for example,
{
int d1, d2, d3;
char buf1[4], buf2[4];
d1 = open ("foo", O_RDONLY);
d2 = dup (d1);
d3 = dup (d2);
lseek (d3, 1024, SEEK_SET);
read (d1, buf1, 4);
read (d2, buf2, 4);
}
will read four characters starting with the 1024th character of foo,
and then four more characters starting with the 1028th character.
-- Data Type: off_t
This is a signed integer type used to represent file sizes. In the
GNU C Library, this type is no narrower than int.
If the source is compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this type
is transparently replaced by off64_t.
-- Data Type: off64_t
This type is used similar to off_t. The difference is that even
on 32 bit machines, where the off_t type would have 32 bits,
off64_t has 64 bits and so is able to address files up to 2^63
bytes in length.
When compiling with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this type is
available under the name off_t.
These aliases for the SEEK_… constants exist for the sake of
compatibility with older BSD systems. They are defined in two different
header files: fcntl.h and sys/file.h.
L_SET
An alias for SEEK_SET.
L_INCR
An alias for SEEK_CUR.
L_XTND
An alias for SEEK_END.

File: libc.info, Node: Descriptors and Streams, Next: Stream/Descriptor Precautions, Prev: File Position Primitive, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.4 Descriptors and Streams
============================
Given an open file descriptor, you can create a stream for it with the
fdopen function. You can get the underlying file descriptor for an
existing stream with the fileno function. These functions are
declared in the header file stdio.h.
-- Function: FILE * fdopen (int FILEDES, const char *OPENTYPE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap lock | AC-Unsafe mem lock |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The fdopen function returns a new stream for the file descriptor
FILEDES.
The OPENTYPE argument is interpreted in the same way as for the
fopen function (*note Opening Streams::), except that the b
option is not permitted; this is because GNU systems make no
distinction between text and binary files. Also, "w" and "w+"
do not cause truncation of the file; these have an effect only when
opening a file, and in this case the file has already been opened.
You must make sure that the OPENTYPE argument matches the actual
mode of the open file descriptor.
The return value is the new stream. If the stream cannot be
created (for example, if the modes for the file indicated by the
file descriptor do not permit the access specified by the OPENTYPE
argument), a null pointer is returned instead.
In some other systems, fdopen may fail to detect that the modes
for file descriptor do not permit the access specified by
opentype. The GNU C Library always checks for this.
For an example showing the use of the fdopen function, see *note
Creating a Pipe::.
-- Function: int fileno (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function returns the file descriptor associated with the
stream STREAM. If an error is detected (for example, if the STREAM
is not valid) or if STREAM does not do I/O to a file, fileno
returns -1.
-- Function: int fileno_unlocked (FILE *STREAM)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The fileno_unlocked function is equivalent to the fileno
function except that it does not implicitly lock the stream if the
state is FSETLOCKING_INTERNAL.
This function is a GNU extension.
There are also symbolic constants defined in unistd.h for the file
descriptors belonging to the standard streams stdin, stdout, and
stderr; see *note Standard Streams::.
STDIN_FILENO
This macro has value 0, which is the file descriptor for standard
input.
STDOUT_FILENO
This macro has value 1, which is the file descriptor for standard
output.
STDERR_FILENO
This macro has value 2, which is the file descriptor for standard
error output.

File: libc.info, Node: Stream/Descriptor Precautions, Next: Scatter-Gather, Prev: Descriptors and Streams, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.5 Dangers of Mixing Streams and Descriptors
==============================================
You can have multiple file descriptors and streams (lets call both
streams and descriptors “channels” for short) connected to the same
file, but you must take care to avoid confusion between channels. There
are two cases to consider: "linked" channels that share a single file
position value, and "independent" channels that have their own file
positions.
Its best to use just one channel in your program for actual data
transfer to any given file, except when all the access is for input.
For example, if you open a pipe (something you can only do at the file
descriptor level), either do all I/O with the descriptor, or construct a
stream from the descriptor with fdopen and then do all I/O with the
stream.
* Menu:
* Linked Channels:: Dealing with channels sharing a file position.
* Independent Channels:: Dealing with separately opened, unlinked channels.
* Cleaning Streams:: Cleaning a stream makes it safe to use
another channel.

File: libc.info, Node: Linked Channels, Next: Independent Channels, Up: Stream/Descriptor Precautions
13.5.1 Linked Channels
----------------------
Channels that come from a single opening share the same file position;
we call them "linked" channels. Linked channels result when you make a
stream from a descriptor using fdopen, when you get a descriptor from
a stream with fileno, when you copy a descriptor with dup or dup2,
and when descriptors are inherited during fork. For files that dont
support random access, such as terminals and pipes, _all_ channels are
effectively linked. On random-access files, all append-type output
streams are effectively linked to each other.
If you have been using a stream for I/O (or have just opened the
stream), and you want to do I/O using another channel (either a stream
or a descriptor) that is linked to it, you must first "clean up" the
stream that you have been using. *Note Cleaning Streams::.
Terminating a process, or executing a new program in the process,
destroys all the streams in the process. If descriptors linked to these
streams persist in other processes, their file positions become
undefined as a result. To prevent this, you must clean up the streams
before destroying them.

File: libc.info, Node: Independent Channels, Next: Cleaning Streams, Prev: Linked Channels, Up: Stream/Descriptor Precautions
13.5.2 Independent Channels
---------------------------
When you open channels (streams or descriptors) separately on a seekable
file, each channel has its own file position. These are called
"independent channels".
The system handles each channel independently. Most of the time,
this is quite predictable and natural (especially for input): each
channel can read or write sequentially at its own place in the file.
However, if some of the channels are streams, you must take these
precautions:
• You should clean an output stream after use, before doing anything
else that might read or write from the same part of the file.
• You should clean an input stream before reading data that may have
been modified using an independent channel. Otherwise, you might
read obsolete data that had been in the streams buffer.
If you do output to one channel at the end of the file, this will
certainly leave the other independent channels positioned somewhere
before the new end. You cannot reliably set their file positions to the
new end of file before writing, because the file can always be extended
by another process between when you set the file position and when you
write the data. Instead, use an append-type descriptor or stream; they
always output at the current end of the file. In order to make the
end-of-file position accurate, you must clean the output channel you
were using, if it is a stream.
Its impossible for two channels to have separate file pointers for a
file that doesnt support random access. Thus, channels for reading or
writing such files are always linked, never independent. Append-type
channels are also always linked. For these channels, follow the rules
for linked channels; see *note Linked Channels::.

File: libc.info, Node: Cleaning Streams, Prev: Independent Channels, Up: Stream/Descriptor Precautions
13.5.3 Cleaning Streams
-----------------------
You can use fflush to clean a stream in most cases.
You can skip the fflush if you know the stream is already clean. A
stream is clean whenever its buffer is empty. For example, an
unbuffered stream is always clean. An input stream that is at
end-of-file is clean. A line-buffered stream is clean when the last
character output was a newline. However, a just-opened input stream
might not be clean, as its input buffer might not be empty.
There is one case in which cleaning a stream is impossible on most
systems. This is when the stream is doing input from a file that is not
random-access. Such streams typically read ahead, and when the file is
not random access, there is no way to give back the excess data already
read. When an input stream reads from a random-access file, fflush
does clean the stream, but leaves the file pointer at an unpredictable
place; you must set the file pointer before doing any further I/O.
Closing an output-only stream also does fflush, so this is a valid
way of cleaning an output stream.
You need not clean a stream before using its descriptor for control
operations such as setting terminal modes; these operations dont affect
the file position and are not affected by it. You can use any
descriptor for these operations, and all channels are affected
simultaneously. However, text already “output” to a stream but still
buffered by the stream will be subject to the new terminal modes when
subsequently flushed. To make sure “past” output is covered by the
terminal settings that were in effect at the time, flush the output
streams for that terminal before setting the modes. *Note Terminal
Modes::.

File: libc.info, Node: Scatter-Gather, Next: Memory-mapped I/O, Prev: Stream/Descriptor Precautions, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.6 Fast Scatter-Gather I/O
============================
Some applications may need to read or write data to multiple buffers,
which are separated in memory. Although this can be done easily enough
with multiple calls to read and write, it is inefficient because
there is overhead associated with each kernel call.
Instead, many platforms provide special high-speed primitives to
perform these "scatter-gather" operations in a single kernel call. The
GNU C Library will provide an emulation on any system that lacks these
primitives, so they are not a portability threat. They are defined in
sys/uio.h.
These functions are controlled with arrays of iovec structures,
which describe the location and size of each buffer.
-- Data Type: struct iovec
The iovec structure describes a buffer. It contains two fields:
void *iov_base
Contains the address of a buffer.
size_t iov_len
Contains the length of the buffer.
-- Function: ssize_t readv (int FILEDES, const struct iovec *VECTOR,
int COUNT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The readv function reads data from FILEDES and scatters it into
the buffers described in VECTOR, which is taken to be COUNT
structures long. As each buffer is filled, data is sent to the
next.
Note that readv is not guaranteed to fill all the buffers. It
may stop at any point, for the same reasons read would.
The return value is a count of bytes (_not_ buffers) read, 0
indicating end-of-file, or -1 indicating an error. The possible
errors are the same as in read.
-- Function: ssize_t writev (int FILEDES, const struct iovec *VECTOR,
int COUNT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The writev function gathers data from the buffers described in
VECTOR, which is taken to be COUNT structures long, and writes them
to filedes. As each buffer is written, it moves on to the next.
Like readv, writev may stop midstream under the same conditions
write would.
The return value is a count of bytes written, or -1 indicating an
error. The possible errors are the same as in write.
Note that if the buffers are small (under about 1kB), high-level
streams may be easier to use than these functions. However, readv and
writev are more efficient when the individual buffers themselves (as
opposed to the total output), are large. In that case, a high-level
stream would not be able to cache the data effectively.

File: libc.info, Node: Memory-mapped I/O, Next: Waiting for I/O, Prev: Scatter-Gather, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.7 Memory-mapped I/O
======================
On modern operating systems, it is possible to "mmap" (pronounced
“em-map”) a file to a region of memory. When this is done, the file can
be accessed just like an array in the program.
This is more efficient than read or write, as only the regions of
the file that a program actually accesses are loaded. Accesses to
not-yet-loaded parts of the mmapped region are handled in the same way
as swapped out pages.
Since mmapped pages can be stored back to their file when physical
memory is low, it is possible to mmap files orders of magnitude larger
than both the physical memory _and_ swap space. The only limit is
address space. The theoretical limit is 4GB on a 32-bit machine -
however, the actual limit will be smaller since some areas will be
reserved for other purposes. If the LFS interface is used the file size
on 32-bit systems is not limited to 2GB (offsets are signed which
reduces the addressable area of 4GB by half); the full 64-bit are
available.
Memory mapping only works on entire pages of memory. Thus, addresses
for mapping must be page-aligned, and length values will be rounded up.
To determine the size of a page the machine uses one should use
size_t page_size = (size_t) sysconf (_SC_PAGESIZE);
These functions are declared in sys/mman.h.
-- Function: void * mmap (void *ADDRESS, size_t LENGTH, int PROTECT,
int FLAGS, int FILEDES, off_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The mmap function creates a new mapping, connected to bytes
(OFFSET) to (OFFSET + LENGTH - 1) in the file open on FILEDES. A
new reference for the file specified by FILEDES is created, which
is not removed by closing the file.
ADDRESS gives a preferred starting address for the mapping. NULL
expresses no preference. Any previous mapping at that address is
automatically removed. The address you give may still be changed,
unless you use the MAP_FIXED flag.
PROTECT contains flags that control what kind of access is
permitted. They include PROT_READ, PROT_WRITE, and
PROT_EXEC, which permit reading, writing, and execution,
respectively. Inappropriate access will cause a segfault (*note
Program Error Signals::).
Note that most hardware designs cannot support write permission
without read permission, and many do not distinguish read and
execute permission. Thus, you may receive wider permissions than
you ask for, and mappings of write-only files may be denied even if
you do not use PROT_READ.
FLAGS contains flags that control the nature of the map. One of
MAP_SHARED or MAP_PRIVATE must be specified.
They include:
MAP_PRIVATE
This specifies that writes to the region should never be
written back to the attached file. Instead, a copy is made
for the process, and the region will be swapped normally if
memory runs low. No other process will see the changes.
Since private mappings effectively revert to ordinary memory
when written to, you must have enough virtual memory for a
copy of the entire mmapped region if you use this mode with
PROT_WRITE.
MAP_SHARED
This specifies that writes to the region will be written back
to the file. Changes made will be shared immediately with
other processes mmaping the same file.
Note that actual writing may take place at any time. You need
to use msync, described below, if it is important that other
processes using conventional I/O get a consistent view of the
file.
MAP_FIXED
This forces the system to use the exact mapping address
specified in ADDRESS and fail if it cant.
MAP_ANONYMOUS
MAP_ANON
This flag tells the system to create an anonymous mapping, not
connected to a file. FILEDES and OFF are ignored, and the
region is initialized with zeros.
Anonymous maps are used as the basic primitive to extend the
heap on some systems. They are also useful to share data
between multiple tasks without creating a file.
On some systems using private anonymous mmaps is more
efficient than using malloc for large blocks. This is not
an issue with the GNU C Library, as the included malloc
automatically uses mmap where appropriate.
mmap returns the address of the new mapping, or MAP_FAILED for
an error.
Possible errors include:
EINVAL
Either ADDRESS was unusable, or inconsistent FLAGS were given.
EACCES
FILEDES was not open for the type of access specified in
PROTECT.
ENOMEM
Either there is not enough memory for the operation, or the
process is out of address space.
ENODEV
This file is of a type that doesnt support mapping.
ENOEXEC
The file is on a filesystem that doesnt support mapping.
-- Function: void * mmap64 (void *ADDRESS, size_t LENGTH, int PROTECT,
int FLAGS, int FILEDES, off64_t OFFSET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The mmap64 function is equivalent to the mmap function but the
OFFSET parameter is of type off64_t. On 32-bit systems this
allows the file associated with the FILEDES descriptor to be larger
than 2GB. FILEDES must be a descriptor returned from a call to
open64 or fopen64 and freopen64 where the descriptor is
retrieved with fileno.
When the sources are translated with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is actually available under the name mmap. I.e., the
new, extended API using 64 bit file sizes and offsets transparently
replaces the old API.
-- Function: int munmap (void *ADDR, size_t LENGTH)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
munmap removes any memory maps from (ADDR) to (ADDR + LENGTH).
LENGTH should be the length of the mapping.
It is safe to unmap multiple mappings in one command, or include
unmapped space in the range. It is also possible to unmap only
part of an existing mapping. However, only entire pages can be
removed. If LENGTH is not an even number of pages, it will be
rounded up.
It returns 0 for success and -1 for an error.
One error is possible:
EINVAL
The memory range given was outside the user mmap range or
wasnt page aligned.
-- Function: int msync (void *ADDRESS, size_t LENGTH, int FLAGS)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
When using shared mappings, the kernel can write the file at any
time before the mapping is removed. To be certain data has
actually been written to the file and will be accessible to
non-memory-mapped I/O, it is necessary to use this function.
It operates on the region ADDRESS to (ADDRESS + LENGTH). It may be
used on part of a mapping or multiple mappings, however the region
given should not contain any unmapped space.
FLAGS can contain some options:
MS_SYNC
This flag makes sure the data is actually written _to disk_.
Normally msync only makes sure that accesses to a file with
conventional I/O reflect the recent changes.
MS_ASYNC
This tells msync to begin the synchronization, but not to
wait for it to complete.
msync returns 0 for success and -1 for error. Errors include:
EINVAL
An invalid region was given, or the FLAGS were invalid.
EFAULT
There is no existing mapping in at least part of the given
region.
-- Function: void * mremap (void *ADDRESS, size_t LENGTH, size_t
NEW_LENGTH, int FLAG)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function can be used to change the size of an existing memory
area. ADDRESS and LENGTH must cover a region entirely mapped in
the same mmap statement. A new mapping with the same
characteristics will be returned with the length NEW_LENGTH.
One option is possible, MREMAP_MAYMOVE. If it is given in FLAGS,
the system may remove the existing mapping and create a new one of
the desired length in another location.
The address of the resulting mapping is returned, or -1. Possible
error codes include:
EFAULT
There is no existing mapping in at least part of the original
region, or the region covers two or more distinct mappings.
EINVAL
The address given is misaligned or inappropriate.
EAGAIN
The region has pages locked, and if extended it would exceed
the processs resource limit for locked pages. *Note Limits
on Resources::.
ENOMEM
The region is private writable, and insufficient virtual
memory is available to extend it. Also, this error will occur
if MREMAP_MAYMOVE is not given and the extension would
collide with another mapped region.
This function is only available on a few systems. Except for
performing optional optimizations one should not rely on this function.
Not all file descriptors may be mapped. Sockets, pipes, and most
devices only allow sequential access and do not fit into the mapping
abstraction. In addition, some regular files may not be mmapable, and
older kernels may not support mapping at all. Thus, programs using
mmap should have a fallback method to use should it fail. *Note
(standards)Mmap::.
-- Function: int madvise (void *ADDR, size_t LENGTH, int ADVICE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function can be used to provide the system with ADVICE about
the intended usage patterns of the memory region starting at ADDR
and extending LENGTH bytes.
The valid BSD values for ADVICE are:
MADV_NORMAL
The region should receive no further special treatment.
MADV_RANDOM
The region will be accessed via random page references. The
kernel should page-in the minimal number of pages for each
page fault.
MADV_SEQUENTIAL
The region will be accessed via sequential page references.
This may cause the kernel to aggressively read-ahead,
expecting further sequential references after any page fault
within this region.
MADV_WILLNEED
The region will be needed. The pages within this region may
be pre-faulted in by the kernel.
MADV_DONTNEED
The region is no longer needed. The kernel may free these
pages, causing any changes to the pages to be lost, as well as
swapped out pages to be discarded.
The POSIX names are slightly different, but with the same meanings:
POSIX_MADV_NORMAL
This corresponds with BSDs MADV_NORMAL.
POSIX_MADV_RANDOM
This corresponds with BSDs MADV_RANDOM.
POSIX_MADV_SEQUENTIAL
This corresponds with BSDs MADV_SEQUENTIAL.
POSIX_MADV_WILLNEED
This corresponds with BSDs MADV_WILLNEED.
POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED
This corresponds with BSDs MADV_DONTNEED.
madvise returns 0 for success and -1 for error. Errors include:
EINVAL
An invalid region was given, or the ADVICE was invalid.
EFAULT
There is no existing mapping in at least part of the given
region.
-- Function: int shm_open (const char *NAME, int OFLAG, mode_t MODE)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe init heap lock |
AC-Unsafe lock mem fd | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function returns a file descriptor that can be used to
allocate shared memory via mmap. Unrelated processes can use same
NAME to create or open existing shared memory objects.
A NAME argument specifies the shared memory object to be opened.
In the GNU C Library it must be a string smaller than NAME_MAX
bytes starting with an optional slash but containing no other
slashes.
The semantics of OFLAG and MODE arguments is same as in open.
shm_open returns the file descriptor on success or -1 on error.
On failure errno is set.
-- Function: int shm_unlink (const char *NAME)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe locale | AS-Unsafe init heap lock |
AC-Unsafe lock mem fd | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is inverse of shm_open and removes the object with
the given NAME previously created by shm_open.
shm_unlink returns 0 on success or -1 on error. On failure
errno is set.

File: libc.info, Node: Waiting for I/O, Next: Synchronizing I/O, Prev: Memory-mapped I/O, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.8 Waiting for Input or Output
================================
Sometimes a program needs to accept input on multiple input channels
whenever input arrives. For example, some workstations may have devices
such as a digitizing tablet, function button box, or dial box that are
connected via normal asynchronous serial interfaces; good user interface
style requires responding immediately to input on any device. Another
example is a program that acts as a server to several other processes
via pipes or sockets.
You cannot normally use read for this purpose, because this blocks
the program until input is available on one particular file descriptor;
input on other channels wont wake it up. You could set nonblocking
mode and poll each file descriptor in turn, but this is very
inefficient.
A better solution is to use the select function. This blocks the
program until input or output is ready on a specified set of file
descriptors, or until a timer expires, whichever comes first. This
facility is declared in the header file sys/types.h.
In the case of a server socket (*note Listening::), we say that
“input” is available when there are pending connections that could be
accepted (*note Accepting Connections::). accept for server sockets
blocks and interacts with select just as read does for normal input.
The file descriptor sets for the select function are specified as
fd_set objects. Here is the description of the data type and some
macros for manipulating these objects.
-- Data Type: fd_set
The fd_set data type represents file descriptor sets for the
select function. It is actually a bit array.
-- Macro: int FD_SETSIZE
The value of this macro is the maximum number of file descriptors
that a fd_set object can hold information about. On systems with
a fixed maximum number, FD_SETSIZE is at least that number. On
some systems, including GNU, there is no absolute limit on the
number of descriptors open, but this macro still has a constant
value which controls the number of bits in an fd_set; if you get
a file descriptor with a value as high as FD_SETSIZE, you cannot
put that descriptor into an fd_set.
-- Macro: void FD_ZERO (fd_set *SET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:set | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
This macro initializes the file descriptor set SET to be the empty
set.
-- Macro: void FD_SET (int FILEDES, fd_set *SET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:set | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
This macro adds FILEDES to the file descriptor set SET.
The FILEDES parameter must not have side effects since it is
evaluated more than once.
-- Macro: void FD_CLR (int FILEDES, fd_set *SET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:set | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
This macro removes FILEDES from the file descriptor set SET.
The FILEDES parameter must not have side effects since it is
evaluated more than once.
-- Macro: int FD_ISSET (int FILEDES, const fd_set *SET)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:set | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX
Safety Concepts::.
This macro returns a nonzero value (true) if FILEDES is a member of
the file descriptor set SET, and zero (false) otherwise.
The FILEDES parameter must not have side effects since it is
evaluated more than once.
Next, here is the description of the select function itself.
-- Function: int select (int NFDS, fd_set *READ-FDS, fd_set *WRITE-FDS,
fd_set *EXCEPT-FDS, struct timeval *TIMEOUT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe race:read-fds race:write-fds race:except-fds
| AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The select function blocks the calling process until there is
activity on any of the specified sets of file descriptors, or until
the timeout period has expired.
The file descriptors specified by the READ-FDS argument are checked
to see if they are ready for reading; the WRITE-FDS file
descriptors are checked to see if they are ready for writing; and
the EXCEPT-FDS file descriptors are checked for exceptional
conditions. You can pass a null pointer for any of these arguments
if you are not interested in checking for that kind of condition.
A file descriptor is considered ready for reading if a read call
will not block. This usually includes the read offset being at the
end of the file or there is an error to report. A server socket is
considered ready for reading if there is a pending connection which
can be accepted with accept; *note Accepting Connections::. A
client socket is ready for writing when its connection is fully
established; *note Connecting::.
“Exceptional conditions” does not mean errors—errors are reported
immediately when an erroneous system call is executed, and do not
constitute a state of the descriptor. Rather, they include
conditions such as the presence of an urgent message on a socket.
(*Note Sockets::, for information on urgent messages.)
The select function checks only the first NFDS file descriptors.
The usual thing is to pass FD_SETSIZE as the value of this
argument.
The TIMEOUT specifies the maximum time to wait. If you pass a null
pointer for this argument, it means to block indefinitely until one
of the file descriptors is ready. Otherwise, you should provide
the time in struct timeval format; see *note High-Resolution
Calendar::. Specify zero as the time (a struct timeval
containing all zeros) if you want to find out which descriptors are
ready without waiting if none are ready.
The normal return value from select is the total number of ready
file descriptors in all of the sets. Each of the argument sets is
overwritten with information about the descriptors that are ready
for the corresponding operation. Thus, to see if a particular
descriptor DESC has input, use FD_ISSET (DESC, READ-FDS) after
select returns.
If select returns because the timeout period expires, it returns
a value of zero.
Any signal will cause select to return immediately. So if your
program uses signals, you cant rely on select to keep waiting
for the full time specified. If you want to be sure of waiting for
a particular amount of time, you must check for EINTR and repeat
the select with a newly calculated timeout based on the current
time. See the example below. See also *note Interrupted
Primitives::.
If an error occurs, select returns -1 and does not modify the
argument file descriptor sets. The following errno error
conditions are defined for this function:
EBADF
One of the file descriptor sets specified an invalid file
descriptor.
EINTR
The operation was interrupted by a signal. *Note Interrupted
Primitives::.
EINVAL
The TIMEOUT argument is invalid; one of the components is
negative or too large.
*Portability Note:* The select function is a BSD Unix feature.
Here is an example showing how you can use select to establish a
timeout period for reading from a file descriptor. The input_timeout
function blocks the calling process until input is available on the file
descriptor, or until the timeout period expires.
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
int
input_timeout (int filedes, unsigned int seconds)
{
fd_set set;
struct timeval timeout;
/* Initialize the file descriptor set. */
FD_ZERO (&set);
FD_SET (filedes, &set);
/* Initialize the timeout data structure. */
timeout.tv_sec = seconds;
timeout.tv_usec = 0;
/* select returns 0 if timeout, 1 if input available, -1 if error. */
return TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (select (FD_SETSIZE,
&set, NULL, NULL,
&timeout));
}
int
main (void)
{
fprintf (stderr, "select returned %d.\n",
input_timeout (STDIN_FILENO, 5));
return 0;
}
There is another example showing the use of select to multiplex
input from multiple sockets in *note Server Example::.

File: libc.info, Node: Synchronizing I/O, Next: Asynchronous I/O, Prev: Waiting for I/O, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.9 Synchronizing I/O operations
=================================
In most modern operating systems, the normal I/O operations are not
executed synchronously. I.e., even if a write system call returns,
this does not mean the data is actually written to the media, e.g., the
disk.
In situations where synchronization points are necessary, you can use
special functions which ensure that all operations finish before they
return.
-- Function: void sync (void)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
A call to this function will not return as long as there is data
which has not been written to the device. All dirty buffers in the
kernel will be written and so an overall consistent system can be
achieved (if no other process in parallel writes data).
A prototype for sync can be found in unistd.h.
Programs more often want to ensure that data written to a given file
is committed, rather than all data in the system. For this, sync is
overkill.
-- Function: int fsync (int FILDES)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The fsync function can be used to make sure all data associated
with the open file FILDES is written to the device associated with
the descriptor. The function call does not return unless all
actions have finished.
A prototype for fsync can be found in unistd.h.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
fsync is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources
stay allocated until the program ends. To avoid this, calls to
fsync should be protected using cancellation handlers.
The return value of the function is zero if no error occurred.
Otherwise it is -1 and the global variable ERRNO is set to the
following values:
EBADF
The descriptor FILDES is not valid.
EINVAL
No synchronization is possible since the system does not
implement this.
Sometimes it is not even necessary to write all data associated with
a file descriptor. E.g., in database files which do not change in size
it is enough to write all the file content data to the device.
Meta-information, like the modification time etc., are not that
important and leaving such information uncommitted does not prevent a
successful recovering of the file in case of a problem.
-- Function: int fdatasync (int FILDES)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
When a call to the fdatasync function returns, it is ensured that
all of the file data is written to the device. For all pending I/O
operations, the parts guaranteeing data integrity finished.
Not all systems implement the fdatasync operation. On systems
missing this functionality fdatasync is emulated by a call to
fsync since the performed actions are a superset of those
required by fdatasync.
The prototype for fdatasync is in unistd.h.
The return value of the function is zero if no error occurred.
Otherwise it is -1 and the global variable ERRNO is set to the
following values:
EBADF
The descriptor FILDES is not valid.
EINVAL
No synchronization is possible since the system does not
implement this.

File: libc.info, Node: Asynchronous I/O, Next: Control Operations, Prev: Synchronizing I/O, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.10 Perform I/O Operations in Parallel
========================================
The POSIX.1b standard defines a new set of I/O operations which can
significantly reduce the time an application spends waiting at I/O. The
new functions allow a program to initiate one or more I/O operations and
then immediately resume normal work while the I/O operations are
executed in parallel. This functionality is available if the unistd.h
file defines the symbol _POSIX_ASYNCHRONOUS_IO.
These functions are part of the library with realtime functions named
librt. They are not actually part of the libc binary. The
implementation of these functions can be done using support in the
kernel (if available) or using an implementation based on threads at
userlevel. In the latter case it might be necessary to link
applications with the thread library libpthread in addition to
librt.
All AIO operations operate on files which were opened previously.
There might be arbitrarily many operations running for one file. The
asynchronous I/O operations are controlled using a data structure named
struct aiocb ("AIO control block"). It is defined in aio.h as
follows.
-- Data Type: struct aiocb
The POSIX.1b standard mandates that the struct aiocb structure
contains at least the members described in the following table.
There might be more elements which are used by the implementation,
but depending upon these elements is not portable and is highly
deprecated.
int aio_fildes
This element specifies the file descriptor to be used for the
operation. It must be a legal descriptor, otherwise the
operation will fail.
The device on which the file is opened must allow the seek
operation. I.e., it is not possible to use any of the AIO
operations on devices like terminals where an lseek call
would lead to an error.
off_t aio_offset
This element specifies the offset in the file at which the
operation (input or output) is performed. Since the
operations are carried out in arbitrary order and more than
one operation for one file descriptor can be started, one
cannot expect a current read/write position of the file
descriptor.
volatile void *aio_buf
This is a pointer to the buffer with the data to be written or
the place where the read data is stored.
size_t aio_nbytes
This element specifies the length of the buffer pointed to by
aio_buf.
int aio_reqprio
If the platform has defined _POSIX_PRIORITIZED_IO and
_POSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING, the AIO requests are processed
based on the current scheduling priority. The aio_reqprio
element can then be used to lower the priority of the AIO
operation.
struct sigevent aio_sigevent
This element specifies how the calling process is notified
once the operation terminates. If the sigev_notify element
is SIGEV_NONE, no notification is sent. If it is
SIGEV_SIGNAL, the signal determined by sigev_signo is
sent. Otherwise, sigev_notify must be SIGEV_THREAD. In
this case, a thread is created which starts executing the
function pointed to by sigev_notify_function.
int aio_lio_opcode
This element is only used by the lio_listio and
lio_listio64 functions. Since these functions allow an
arbitrary number of operations to start at once, and each
operation can be input or output (or nothing), the information
must be stored in the control block. The possible values are:
LIO_READ
Start a read operation. Read from the file at position
aio_offset and store the next aio_nbytes bytes in the
buffer pointed to by aio_buf.
LIO_WRITE
Start a write operation. Write aio_nbytes bytes
starting at aio_buf into the file starting at position
aio_offset.
LIO_NOP
Do nothing for this control block. This value is useful
sometimes when an array of struct aiocb values contains
holes, i.e., some of the values must not be handled
although the whole array is presented to the lio_listio
function.
When the sources are compiled using _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit machine, this type is in fact struct aiocb64, since the
LFS interface transparently replaces the struct aiocb definition.
For use with the AIO functions defined in the LFS, there is a similar
type defined which replaces the types of the appropriate members with
larger types but otherwise is equivalent to struct aiocb.
Particularly, all member names are the same.
-- Data Type: struct aiocb64
int aio_fildes
This element specifies the file descriptor which is used for
the operation. It must be a legal descriptor since otherwise
the operation fails for obvious reasons.
The device on which the file is opened must allow the seek
operation. I.e., it is not possible to use any of the AIO
operations on devices like terminals where an lseek call
would lead to an error.
off64_t aio_offset
This element specifies at which offset in the file the
operation (input or output) is performed. Since the operation
are carried in arbitrary order and more than one operation for
one file descriptor can be started, one cannot expect a
current read/write position of the file descriptor.
volatile void *aio_buf
This is a pointer to the buffer with the data to be written or
the place where the read data is stored.
size_t aio_nbytes
This element specifies the length of the buffer pointed to by
aio_buf.
int aio_reqprio
If for the platform _POSIX_PRIORITIZED_IO and
_POSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING are defined the AIO requests are
processed based on the current scheduling priority. The
aio_reqprio element can then be used to lower the priority
of the AIO operation.
struct sigevent aio_sigevent
This element specifies how the calling process is notified
once the operation terminates. If the sigev_notify, element
is SIGEV_NONE no notification is sent. If it is
SIGEV_SIGNAL, the signal determined by sigev_signo is
sent. Otherwise, sigev_notify must be SIGEV_THREAD in
which case a thread which starts executing the function
pointed to by sigev_notify_function.
int aio_lio_opcode
This element is only used by the lio_listio and
[lio_listio64 functions. Since these functions allow an
arbitrary number of operations to start at once, and since
each operation can be input or output (or nothing), the
information must be stored in the control block. See the
description of struct aiocb for a description of the
possible values.
When the sources are compiled using _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 on a
32 bit machine, this type is available under the name struct
aiocb64, since the LFS transparently replaces the old interface.
* Menu:
* Asynchronous Reads/Writes:: Asynchronous Read and Write Operations.
* Status of AIO Operations:: Getting the Status of AIO Operations.
* Synchronizing AIO Operations:: Getting into a consistent state.
* Cancel AIO Operations:: Cancellation of AIO Operations.
* Configuration of AIO:: How to optimize the AIO implementation.

File: libc.info, Node: Asynchronous Reads/Writes, Next: Status of AIO Operations, Up: Asynchronous I/O
13.10.1 Asynchronous Read and Write Operations
----------------------------------------------
-- Function: int aio_read (struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function initiates an asynchronous read operation. It
immediately returns after the operation was enqueued or when an
error was encountered.
The first aiocbp->aio_nbytes bytes of the file for which
aiocbp->aio_fildes is a descriptor are written to the buffer
starting at aiocbp->aio_buf. Reading starts at the absolute
position aiocbp->aio_offset in the file.
If prioritized I/O is supported by the platform the
aiocbp->aio_reqprio value is used to adjust the priority before
the request is actually enqueued.
The calling process is notified about the termination of the read
request according to the aiocbp->aio_sigevent value.
When aio_read returns, the return value is zero if no error
occurred that can be found before the process is enqueued. If such
an early error is found, the function returns -1 and sets errno
to one of the following values:
EAGAIN
The request was not enqueued due to (temporarily) exceeded
resource limitations.
ENOSYS
The aio_read function is not implemented.
EBADF
The aiocbp->aio_fildes descriptor is not valid. This
condition need not be recognized before enqueueing the request
and so this error might also be signaled asynchronously.
EINVAL
The aiocbp->aio_offset or aiocbp->aio_reqpiro value is
invalid. This condition need not be recognized before
enqueueing the request and so this error might also be
signaled asynchronously.
If aio_read returns zero, the current status of the request can
be queried using aio_error and aio_return functions. As long
as the value returned by aio_error is EINPROGRESS the operation
has not yet completed. If aio_error returns zero, the operation
successfully terminated, otherwise the value is to be interpreted
as an error code. If the function terminated, the result of the
operation can be obtained using a call to aio_return. The
returned value is the same as an equivalent call to read would
have returned. Possible error codes returned by aio_error are:
EBADF
The aiocbp->aio_fildes descriptor is not valid.
ECANCELED
The operation was canceled before the operation was finished
(*note Cancel AIO Operations::)
EINVAL
The aiocbp->aio_offset value is invalid.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is in fact aio_read64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_read64 (struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to the aio_read function. The only
difference is that on 32 bit machines, the file descriptor should
be opened in the large file mode. Internally, aio_read64 uses
functionality equivalent to lseek64 (*note File Position
Primitive::) to position the file descriptor correctly for the
reading, as opposed to lseek functionality used in aio_read.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is available under the name aio_read and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.
To write data asynchronously to a file, there exists an equivalent
pair of functions with a very similar interface.
-- Function: int aio_write (struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function initiates an asynchronous write operation. The
function call immediately returns after the operation was enqueued
or if before this happens an error was encountered.
The first aiocbp->aio_nbytes bytes from the buffer starting at
aiocbp->aio_buf are written to the file for which
aiocbp->aio_fildes is a descriptor, starting at the absolute
position aiocbp->aio_offset in the file.
If prioritized I/O is supported by the platform, the
aiocbp->aio_reqprio value is used to adjust the priority before
the request is actually enqueued.
The calling process is notified about the termination of the read
request according to the aiocbp->aio_sigevent value.
When aio_write returns, the return value is zero if no error
occurred that can be found before the process is enqueued. If such
an early error is found the function returns -1 and sets errno to
one of the following values.
EAGAIN
The request was not enqueued due to (temporarily) exceeded
resource limitations.
ENOSYS
The aio_write function is not implemented.
EBADF
The aiocbp->aio_fildes descriptor is not valid. This
condition may not be recognized before enqueueing the request,
and so this error might also be signaled asynchronously.
EINVAL
The aiocbp->aio_offset or aiocbp->aio_reqprio value is
invalid. This condition may not be recognized before
enqueueing the request and so this error might also be
signaled asynchronously.
In the case aio_write returns zero, the current status of the
request can be queried using aio_error and aio_return
functions. As long as the value returned by aio_error is
EINPROGRESS the operation has not yet completed. If aio_error
returns zero, the operation successfully terminated, otherwise the
value is to be interpreted as an error code. If the function
terminated, the result of the operation can be get using a call to
aio_return. The returned value is the same as an equivalent call
to read would have returned. Possible error codes returned by
aio_error are:
EBADF
The aiocbp->aio_fildes descriptor is not valid.
ECANCELED
The operation was canceled before the operation was finished.
(*note Cancel AIO Operations::)
EINVAL
The aiocbp->aio_offset value is invalid.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is in fact aio_write64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_write64 (struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to the aio_write function. The only
difference is that on 32 bit machines the file descriptor should be
opened in the large file mode. Internally aio_write64 uses
functionality equivalent to lseek64 (*note File Position
Primitive::) to position the file descriptor correctly for the
writing, as opposed to lseek functionality used in aio_write.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is available under the name aio_write and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.
Besides these functions with the more or less traditional interface,
POSIX.1b also defines a function which can initiate more than one
operation at a time, and which can handle freely mixed read and write
operations. It is therefore similar to a combination of readv and
writev.
-- Function: int lio_listio (int MODE, struct aiocb *const LIST[], int
NENT, struct sigevent *SIG)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The lio_listio function can be used to enqueue an arbitrary
number of read and write requests at one time. The requests can
all be meant for the same file, all for different files or every
solution in between.
lio_listio gets the NENT requests from the array pointed to by
LIST. The operation to be performed is determined by the
aio_lio_opcode member in each element of LIST. If this field is
LIO_READ a read operation is enqueued, similar to a call of
aio_read for this element of the array (except that the way the
termination is signalled is different, as we will see below). If
the aio_lio_opcode member is LIO_WRITE a write operation is
enqueued. Otherwise the aio_lio_opcode must be LIO_NOP in
which case this element of LIST is simply ignored. This
“operation” is useful in situations where one has a fixed array of
struct aiocb elements from which only a few need to be handled at
a time. Another situation is where the lio_listio call was
canceled before all requests are processed (*note Cancel AIO
Operations::) and the remaining requests have to be reissued.
The other members of each element of the array pointed to by list
must have values suitable for the operation as described in the
documentation for aio_read and aio_write above.
The MODE argument determines how lio_listio behaves after having
enqueued all the requests. If MODE is LIO_WAIT it waits until
all requests terminated. Otherwise MODE must be LIO_NOWAIT and
in this case the function returns immediately after having enqueued
all the requests. In this case the caller gets a notification of
the termination of all requests according to the SIG parameter. If
SIG is NULL no notification is send. Otherwise a signal is sent
or a thread is started, just as described in the description for
aio_read or aio_write.
If MODE is LIO_WAIT, the return value of lio_listio is 0 when
all requests completed successfully. Otherwise the function return
-1 and errno is set accordingly. To find out which request or
requests failed one has to use the aio_error function on all the
elements of the array LIST.
In case MODE is LIO_NOWAIT, the function returns 0 if all
requests were enqueued correctly. The current state of the
requests can be found using aio_error and aio_return as
described above. If lio_listio returns -1 in this mode, the
global variable errno is set accordingly. If a request did not
yet terminate, a call to aio_error returns EINPROGRESS. If the
value is different, the request is finished and the error value (or
0) is returned and the result of the operation can be retrieved
using aio_return.
Possible values for errno are:
EAGAIN
The resources necessary to queue all the requests are not
available at the moment. The error status for each element of
LIST must be checked to determine which request failed.
Another reason could be that the system wide limit of AIO
requests is exceeded. This cannot be the case for the
implementation on GNU systems since no arbitrary limits exist.
EINVAL
The MODE parameter is invalid or NENT is larger than
AIO_LISTIO_MAX.
EIO
One or more of the requests I/O operations failed. The error
status of each request should be checked to determine which
one failed.
ENOSYS
The lio_listio function is not supported.
If the MODE parameter is LIO_NOWAIT and the caller cancels a
request, the error status for this request returned by aio_error
is ECANCELED.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is in fact lio_listio64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int lio_listio64 (int MODE, struct aiocb64 *const LIST[],
int NENT, struct sigevent *SIG)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to the lio_listio function. The only
difference is that on 32 bit machines, the file descriptor should
be opened in the large file mode. Internally, lio_listio64 uses
functionality equivalent to lseek64 (*note File Position
Primitive::) to position the file descriptor correctly for the
reading or writing, as opposed to lseek functionality used in
lio_listio.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is available under the name lio_listio and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.

File: libc.info, Node: Status of AIO Operations, Next: Synchronizing AIO Operations, Prev: Asynchronous Reads/Writes, Up: Asynchronous I/O
13.10.2 Getting the Status of AIO Operations
--------------------------------------------
As already described in the documentation of the functions in the last
section, it must be possible to get information about the status of an
I/O request. When the operation is performed truly asynchronously (as
with aio_read and aio_write and with lio_listio when the mode is
LIO_NOWAIT), one sometimes needs to know whether a specific request
already terminated and if so, what the result was. The following two
functions allow you to get this kind of information.
-- Function: int aio_error (const struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function determines the error state of the request described
by the struct aiocb variable pointed to by AIOCBP. If the
request has not yet terminated the value returned is always
EINPROGRESS. Once the request has terminated the value
aio_error returns is either 0 if the request completed
successfully or it returns the value which would be stored in the
errno variable if the request would have been done using read,
write, or fsync.
The function can return ENOSYS if it is not implemented. It
could also return EINVAL if the AIOCBP parameter does not refer
to an asynchronous operation whose return status is not yet known.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is in fact aio_error64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_error64 (const struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to aio_error with the only difference
that the argument is a reference to a variable of type struct
aiocb64.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is available under the name aio_error and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.
-- Function: ssize_t aio_return (struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function can be used to retrieve the return status of the
operation carried out by the request described in the variable
pointed to by AIOCBP. As long as the error status of this request
as returned by aio_error is EINPROGRESS the return of this
function is undefined.
Once the request is finished this function can be used exactly once
to retrieve the return value. Following calls might lead to
undefined behavior. The return value itself is the value which
would have been returned by the read, write, or fsync call.
The function can return ENOSYS if it is not implemented. It
could also return EINVAL if the AIOCBP parameter does not refer
to an asynchronous operation whose return status is not yet known.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is in fact aio_return64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: ssize_t aio_return64 (struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function is similar to aio_return with the only difference
that the argument is a reference to a variable of type struct
aiocb64.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is available under the name aio_return and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.

File: libc.info, Node: Synchronizing AIO Operations, Next: Cancel AIO Operations, Prev: Status of AIO Operations, Up: Asynchronous I/O
13.10.3 Getting into a Consistent State
---------------------------------------
When dealing with asynchronous operations it is sometimes necessary to
get into a consistent state. This would mean for AIO that one wants to
know whether a certain request or a group of request were processed.
This could be done by waiting for the notification sent by the system
after the operation terminated, but this sometimes would mean wasting
resources (mainly computation time). Instead POSIX.1b defines two
functions which will help with most kinds of consistency.
The aio_fsync and aio_fsync64 functions are only available if the
symbol _POSIX_SYNCHRONIZED_IO is defined in unistd.h.
-- Function: int aio_fsync (int OP, struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
Calling this function forces all I/O operations operating queued at
the time of the function call operating on the file descriptor
aiocbp->aio_fildes into the synchronized I/O completion state
(*note Synchronizing I/O::). The aio_fsync function returns
immediately but the notification through the method described in
aiocbp->aio_sigevent will happen only after all requests for this
file descriptor have terminated and the file is synchronized. This
also means that requests for this very same file descriptor which
are queued after the synchronization request are not affected.
If OP is O_DSYNC the synchronization happens as with a call to
fdatasync. Otherwise OP should be O_SYNC and the
synchronization happens as with fsync.
As long as the synchronization has not happened, a call to
aio_error with the reference to the object pointed to by AIOCBP
returns EINPROGRESS. Once the synchronization is done
aio_error return 0 if the synchronization was not successful.
Otherwise the value returned is the value to which the fsync or
fdatasync function would have set the errno variable. In this
case nothing can be assumed about the consistency for the data
written to this file descriptor.
The return value of this function is 0 if the request was
successfully enqueued. Otherwise the return value is -1 and
errno is set to one of the following values:
EAGAIN
The request could not be enqueued due to temporary lack of
resources.
EBADF
The file descriptor AIOCBP->aio_fildes is not valid.
EINVAL
The implementation does not support I/O synchronization or the
OP parameter is other than O_DSYNC and O_SYNC.
ENOSYS
This function is not implemented.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is in fact aio_fsync64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_fsync64 (int OP, struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to aio_fsync with the only difference
that the argument is a reference to a variable of type struct
aiocb64.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is available under the name aio_fsync and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.
Another method of synchronization is to wait until one or more
requests of a specific set terminated. This could be achieved by the
aio_* functions to notify the initiating process about the termination
but in some situations this is not the ideal solution. In a program
which constantly updates clients somehow connected to the server it is
not always the best solution to go round robin since some connections
might be slow. On the other hand letting the aio_* function notify
the caller might also be not the best solution since whenever the
process works on preparing data for on client it makes no sense to be
interrupted by a notification since the new client will not be handled
before the current client is served. For situations like this
aio_suspend should be used.
-- Function: int aio_suspend (const struct aiocb *const LIST[], int
NENT, const struct timespec *TIMEOUT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
When calling this function, the calling thread is suspended until
at least one of the requests pointed to by the NENT elements of the
array LIST has completed. If any of the requests has already
completed at the time aio_suspend is called, the function returns
immediately. Whether a request has terminated or not is determined
by comparing the error status of the request with EINPROGRESS.
If an element of LIST is NULL, the entry is simply ignored.
If no request has finished, the calling process is suspended. If
TIMEOUT is NULL, the process is not woken until a request has
finished. If TIMEOUT is not NULL, the process remains suspended
at least as long as specified in TIMEOUT. In this case,
aio_suspend returns with an error.
The return value of the function is 0 if one or more requests from
the LIST have terminated. Otherwise the function returns -1 and
errno is set to one of the following values:
EAGAIN
None of the requests from the LIST completed in the time
specified by TIMEOUT.
EINTR
A signal interrupted the aio_suspend function. This signal
might also be sent by the AIO implementation while signalling
the termination of one of the requests.
ENOSYS
The aio_suspend function is not implemented.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is in fact aio_suspend64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_suspend64 (const struct aiocb64 *const LIST[], int
NENT, const struct timespec *TIMEOUT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to aio_suspend with the only difference
that the argument is a reference to a variable of type struct
aiocb64.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64 this
function is available under the name aio_suspend and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.

File: libc.info, Node: Cancel AIO Operations, Next: Configuration of AIO, Prev: Synchronizing AIO Operations, Up: Asynchronous I/O
13.10.4 Cancellation of AIO Operations
--------------------------------------
When one or more requests are asynchronously processed, it might be
useful in some situations to cancel a selected operation, e.g., if it
becomes obvious that the written data is no longer accurate and would
have to be overwritten soon. As an example, assume an application,
which writes data in files in a situation where new incoming data would
have to be written in a file which will be updated by an enqueued
request. The POSIX AIO implementation provides such a function, but
this function is not capable of forcing the cancellation of the request.
It is up to the implementation to decide whether it is possible to
cancel the operation or not. Therefore using this function is merely a
hint.
-- Function: int aio_cancel (int FILDES, struct aiocb *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
The aio_cancel function can be used to cancel one or more
outstanding requests. If the AIOCBP parameter is NULL, the
function tries to cancel all of the outstanding requests which
would process the file descriptor FILDES (i.e., whose aio_fildes
member is FILDES). If AIOCBP is not NULL, aio_cancel attempts
to cancel the specific request pointed to by AIOCBP.
For requests which were successfully canceled, the normal
notification about the termination of the request should take
place. I.e., depending on the struct sigevent object which
controls this, nothing happens, a signal is sent or a thread is
started. If the request cannot be canceled, it terminates the
usual way after performing the operation.
After a request is successfully canceled, a call to aio_error
with a reference to this request as the parameter will return
ECANCELED and a call to aio_return will return -1. If the
request wasnt canceled and is still running the error status is
still EINPROGRESS.
The return value of the function is AIO_CANCELED if there were
requests which havent terminated and which were successfully
canceled. If there is one or more requests left which couldnt be
canceled, the return value is AIO_NOTCANCELED. In this case
aio_error must be used to find out which of the, perhaps
multiple, requests (in AIOCBP is NULL) werent successfully
canceled. If all requests already terminated at the time
aio_cancel is called the return value is AIO_ALLDONE.
If an error occurred during the execution of aio_cancel the
function returns -1 and sets errno to one of the following
values.
EBADF
The file descriptor FILDES is not valid.
ENOSYS
aio_cancel is not implemented.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is in fact aio_cancel64 since the LFS interface
transparently replaces the normal implementation.
-- Function: int aio_cancel64 (int FILDES, struct aiocb64 *AIOCBP)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock heap | AC-Unsafe lock mem |
*Note POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function is similar to aio_cancel with the only difference
that the argument is a reference to a variable of type struct
aiocb64.
When the sources are compiled with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64, this
function is available under the name aio_cancel and so
transparently replaces the interface for small files on 32 bit
machines.

File: libc.info, Node: Configuration of AIO, Prev: Cancel AIO Operations, Up: Asynchronous I/O
13.10.5 How to optimize the AIO implementation
----------------------------------------------
The POSIX standard does not specify how the AIO functions are
implemented. They could be system calls, but it is also possible to
emulate them at userlevel.
At the point of this writing, the available implementation is a
userlevel implementation which uses threads for handling the enqueued
requests. While this implementation requires making some decisions
about limitations, hard limitations are something which is best avoided
in the GNU C Library. Therefore, the GNU C Library provides a means for
tuning the AIO implementation according to the individual use.
-- Data Type: struct aioinit
This data type is used to pass the configuration or tunable
parameters to the implementation. The program has to initialize
the members of this struct and pass it to the implementation using
the aio_init function.
int aio_threads
This member specifies the maximal number of threads which may
be used at any one time.
int aio_num
This number provides an estimate on the maximal number of
simultaneously enqueued requests.
int aio_locks
Unused.
int aio_usedba
Unused.
int aio_debug
Unused.
int aio_numusers
Unused.
int aio_reserved[2]
Unused.
-- Function: void aio_init (const struct aioinit *INIT)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock | AC-Unsafe lock | *Note
POSIX Safety Concepts::.
This function must be called before any other AIO function.
Calling it is completely voluntary, as it is only meant to help the
AIO implementation perform better.
Before calling the aio_init, function the members of a variable
of type struct aioinit must be initialized. Then a reference to
this variable is passed as the parameter to aio_init which itself
may or may not pay attention to the hints.
The function has no return value and no error cases are defined.
It is a extension which follows a proposal from the SGI
implementation in Irix 6. It is not covered by POSIX.1b or Unix98.

File: libc.info, Node: Control Operations, Next: Duplicating Descriptors, Prev: Asynchronous I/O, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.11 Control Operations on Files
=================================
This section describes how you can perform various other operations on
file descriptors, such as inquiring about or setting flags describing
the status of the file descriptor, manipulating record locks, and the
like. All of these operations are performed by the function fcntl.
The second argument to the fcntl function is a command that
specifies which operation to perform. The function and macros that name
various flags that are used with it are declared in the header file
fcntl.h. Many of these flags are also used by the open function;
see *note Opening and Closing Files::.
-- Function: int fcntl (int FILEDES, int COMMAND, …)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
The fcntl function performs the operation specified by COMMAND on
the file descriptor FILEDES. Some commands require additional
arguments to be supplied. These additional arguments and the
return value and error conditions are given in the detailed
descriptions of the individual commands.
Briefly, here is a list of what the various commands are.
F_DUPFD
Duplicate the file descriptor (return another file descriptor
pointing to the same open file). *Note Duplicating
Descriptors::.
F_GETFD
Get flags associated with the file descriptor. *Note
Descriptor Flags::.
F_SETFD
Set flags associated with the file descriptor. *Note
Descriptor Flags::.
F_GETFL
Get flags associated with the open file. *Note File Status
Flags::.
F_SETFL
Set flags associated with the open file. *Note File Status
Flags::.
F_GETLK
Test a file lock. *Note File Locks::.
F_SETLK
Set or clear a file lock. *Note File Locks::.
F_SETLKW
Like F_SETLK, but wait for completion. *Note File Locks::.
F_OFD_GETLK
Test an open file description lock. *Note Open File
Description Locks::. Specific to Linux.
F_OFD_SETLK
Set or clear an open file description lock. *Note Open File
Description Locks::. Specific to Linux.
F_OFD_SETLKW
Like F_OFD_SETLK, but block until lock is acquired. *Note
Open File Description Locks::. Specific to Linux.
F_GETOWN
Get process or process group ID to receive SIGIO signals.
*Note Interrupt Input::.
F_SETOWN
Set process or process group ID to receive SIGIO signals.
*Note Interrupt Input::.
This function is a cancellation point in multi-threaded programs.
This is a problem if the thread allocates some resources (like
memory, file descriptors, semaphores or whatever) at the time
fcntl is called. If the thread gets canceled these resources
stay allocated until the program ends. To avoid this calls to
fcntl should be protected using cancellation handlers.

File: libc.info, Node: Duplicating Descriptors, Next: Descriptor Flags, Prev: Control Operations, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.12 Duplicating Descriptors
=============================
You can "duplicate" a file descriptor, or allocate another file
descriptor that refers to the same open file as the original. Duplicate
descriptors share one file position and one set of file status flags
(*note File Status Flags::), but each has its own set of file descriptor
flags (*note Descriptor Flags::).
The major use of duplicating a file descriptor is to implement
"redirection" of input or output: that is, to change the file or pipe
that a particular file descriptor corresponds to.
You can perform this operation using the fcntl function with the
F_DUPFD command, but there are also convenient functions dup and
dup2 for duplicating descriptors.
The fcntl function and flags are declared in fcntl.h, while
prototypes for dup and dup2 are in the header file unistd.h.
-- Function: int dup (int OLD)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function copies descriptor OLD to the first available
descriptor number (the first number not currently open). It is
equivalent to fcntl (OLD, F_DUPFD, 0).
-- Function: int dup2 (int OLD, int NEW)
Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | *Note POSIX Safety
Concepts::.
This function copies the descriptor OLD to descriptor number NEW.
If OLD is an invalid descriptor, then dup2 does nothing; it does
not close NEW. Otherwise, the new duplicate of OLD replaces any
previous meaning of descriptor NEW, as if NEW were closed first.
If OLD and NEW are different numbers, and OLD is a valid descriptor
number, then dup2 is equivalent to:
close (NEW);
fcntl (OLD, F_DUPFD, NEW)
However, dup2 does this atomically; there is no instant in the
middle of calling dup2 at which NEW is closed and not yet a
duplicate of OLD.
-- Macro: int F_DUPFD
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to copy the
file descriptor given as the first argument.
The form of the call in this case is:
fcntl (OLD, F_DUPFD, NEXT-FILEDES)
The NEXT-FILEDES argument is of type int and specifies that the
file descriptor returned should be the next available one greater
than or equal to this value.
The return value from fcntl with this command is normally the
value of the new file descriptor. A return value of -1 indicates
an error. The following errno error conditions are defined for
this command:
EBADF
The OLD argument is invalid.
EINVAL
The NEXT-FILEDES argument is invalid.
EMFILE
There are no more file descriptors available—your program is
already using the maximum. In BSD and GNU, the maximum is
controlled by a resource limit that can be changed; *note
Limits on Resources::, for more information about the
RLIMIT_NOFILE limit.
ENFILE is not a possible error code for dup2 because dup2
does not create a new opening of a file; duplicate descriptors do
not count toward the limit which ENFILE indicates. EMFILE is
possible because it refers to the limit on distinct descriptor
numbers in use in one process.
Here is an example showing how to use dup2 to do redirection.
Typically, redirection of the standard streams (like stdin) is done by
a shell or shell-like program before calling one of the exec functions
(*note Executing a File::) to execute a new program in a child process.
When the new program is executed, it creates and initializes the
standard streams to point to the corresponding file descriptors, before
its main function is invoked.
So, to redirect standard input to a file, the shell could do
something like:
pid = fork ();
if (pid == 0)
{
char *filename;
char *program;
int file;
file = TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (open (filename, O_RDONLY));
dup2 (file, STDIN_FILENO);
TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (close (file));
execv (program, NULL);
}
There is also a more detailed example showing how to implement
redirection in the context of a pipeline of processes in *note Launching
Jobs::.

File: libc.info, Node: Descriptor Flags, Next: File Status Flags, Prev: Duplicating Descriptors, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.13 File Descriptor Flags
===========================
"File descriptor flags" are miscellaneous attributes of a file
descriptor. These flags are associated with particular file
descriptors, so that if you have created duplicate file descriptors from
a single opening of a file, each descriptor has its own set of flags.
Currently there is just one file descriptor flag: FD_CLOEXEC, which
causes the descriptor to be closed if you use any of the exec…
functions (*note Executing a File::).
The symbols in this section are defined in the header file fcntl.h.
-- Macro: int F_GETFD
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should return the file descriptor flags associated with the
FILEDES argument.
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is a
nonnegative number which can be interpreted as the bitwise OR of
the individual flags (except that currently there is only one flag
to use).
In case of an error, fcntl returns -1. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this command:
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is invalid.
-- Macro: int F_SETFD
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should set the file descriptor flags associated with the
FILEDES argument. This requires a third int argument to specify
the new flags, so the form of the call is:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_SETFD, NEW-FLAGS)
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is an
unspecified value other than -1, which indicates an error. The
flags and error conditions are the same as for the F_GETFD
command.
The following macro is defined for use as a file descriptor flag with
the fcntl function. The value is an integer constant usable as a bit
mask value.
-- Macro: int FD_CLOEXEC
This flag specifies that the file descriptor should be closed when
an exec function is invoked; see *note Executing a File::. When
a file descriptor is allocated (as with open or dup), this bit
is initially cleared on the new file descriptor, meaning that
descriptor will survive into the new program after exec.
If you want to modify the file descriptor flags, you should get the
current flags with F_GETFD and modify the value. Dont assume that
the flags listed here are the only ones that are implemented; your
program may be run years from now and more flags may exist then. For
example, here is a function to set or clear the flag FD_CLOEXEC
without altering any other flags:
/* Set the FD_CLOEXEC flag of DESC if VALUE is nonzero,
or clear the flag if VALUE is 0.
Return 0 on success, or -1 on error with errno set. */
int
set_cloexec_flag (int desc, int value)
{
int oldflags = fcntl (desc, F_GETFD, 0);
/* If reading the flags failed, return error indication now. */
if (oldflags < 0)
return oldflags;
/* Set just the flag we want to set. */
if (value != 0)
oldflags |= FD_CLOEXEC;
else
oldflags &= ~FD_CLOEXEC;
/* Store modified flag word in the descriptor. */
return fcntl (desc, F_SETFD, oldflags);
}

File: libc.info, Node: File Status Flags, Next: File Locks, Prev: Descriptor Flags, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.14 File Status Flags
=======================
"File status flags" are used to specify attributes of the opening of a
file. Unlike the file descriptor flags discussed in *note Descriptor
Flags::, the file status flags are shared by duplicated file descriptors
resulting from a single opening of the file. The file status flags are
specified with the FLAGS argument to open; *note Opening and Closing
Files::.
File status flags fall into three categories, which are described in
the following sections.
• *note Access Modes::, specify what type of access is allowed to the
file: reading, writing, or both. They are set by open and are
returned by fcntl, but cannot be changed.
• *note Open-time Flags::, control details of what open will do.
These flags are not preserved after the open call.
• *note Operating Modes::, affect how operations such as read and
write are done. They are set by open, and can be fetched or
changed with fcntl.
The symbols in this section are defined in the header file fcntl.h.
* Menu:
* Access Modes:: Whether the descriptor can read or write.
* Open-time Flags:: Details of open.
* Operating Modes:: Special modes to control I/O operations.
* Getting File Status Flags:: Fetching and changing these flags.

File: libc.info, Node: Access Modes, Next: Open-time Flags, Up: File Status Flags
13.14.1 File Access Modes
-------------------------
The file access modes allow a file descriptor to be used for reading,
writing, or both. (On GNU/Hurd systems, they can also allow none of
these, and allow execution of the file as a program.) The access modes
are chosen when the file is opened, and never change.
-- Macro: int O_RDONLY
Open the file for read access.
-- Macro: int O_WRONLY
Open the file for write access.
-- Macro: int O_RDWR
Open the file for both reading and writing.
On GNU/Hurd systems (and not on other systems), O_RDONLY and
O_WRONLY are independent bits that can be bitwise-ORed together, and
it is valid for either bit to be set or clear. This means that O_RDWR
is the same as O_RDONLY|O_WRONLY. A file access mode of zero is
permissible; it allows no operations that do input or output to the
file, but does allow other operations such as fchmod. On GNU/Hurd
systems, since “read-only” or “write-only” is a misnomer, fcntl.h
defines additional names for the file access modes. These names are
preferred when writing GNU-specific code. But most programs will want
to be portable to other POSIX.1 systems and should use the POSIX.1 names
above instead.
-- Macro: int O_READ
Open the file for reading. Same as O_RDONLY; only defined on
GNU.
-- Macro: int O_WRITE
Open the file for writing. Same as O_WRONLY; only defined on
GNU.
-- Macro: int O_EXEC
Open the file for executing. Only defined on GNU.
To determine the file access mode with fcntl, you must extract the
access mode bits from the retrieved file status flags. On GNU/Hurd
systems, you can just test the O_READ and O_WRITE bits in the flags
word. But in other POSIX.1 systems, reading and writing access modes
are not stored as distinct bit flags. The portable way to extract the
file access mode bits is with O_ACCMODE.
-- Macro: int O_ACCMODE
This macro stands for a mask that can be bitwise-ANDed with the
file status flag value to produce a value representing the file
access mode. The mode will be O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, or O_RDWR.
(On GNU/Hurd systems it could also be zero, and it never includes
the O_EXEC bit.)

File: libc.info, Node: Open-time Flags, Next: Operating Modes, Prev: Access Modes, Up: File Status Flags
13.14.2 Open-time Flags
-----------------------
The open-time flags specify options affecting how open will behave.
These options are not preserved once the file is open. The exception to
this is O_NONBLOCK, which is also an I/O operating mode and so it _is_
saved. *Note Opening and Closing Files::, for how to call open.
There are two sorts of options specified by open-time flags.
• "File name translation flags" affect how open looks up the file
name to locate the file, and whether the file can be created.
• "Open-time action flags" specify extra operations that open will
perform on the file once it is open.
Here are the file name translation flags.
-- Macro: int O_CREAT
If set, the file will be created if it doesnt already exist.
-- Macro: int O_EXCL
If both O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set, then open fails if the
specified file already exists. This is guaranteed to never clobber
an existing file.
-- Macro: int O_NONBLOCK
This prevents open from blocking for a “long time” to open the
file. This is only meaningful for some kinds of files, usually
devices such as serial ports; when it is not meaningful, it is
harmless and ignored. Often opening a port to a modem blocks until
the modem reports carrier detection; if O_NONBLOCK is specified,
open will return immediately without a carrier.
Note that the O_NONBLOCK flag is overloaded as both an I/O
operating mode and a file name translation flag. This means that
specifying O_NONBLOCK in open also sets nonblocking I/O mode;
*note Operating Modes::. To open the file without blocking but do
normal I/O that blocks, you must call open with O_NONBLOCK set
and then call fcntl to turn the bit off.
-- Macro: int O_NOCTTY
If the named file is a terminal device, dont make it the
controlling terminal for the process. *Note Job Control::, for
information about what it means to be the controlling terminal.
On GNU/Hurd systems and 4.4 BSD, opening a file never makes it the
controlling terminal and O_NOCTTY is zero. However, GNU/Linux
systems and some other systems use a nonzero value for O_NOCTTY
and set the controlling terminal when you open a file that is a
terminal device; so to be portable, use O_NOCTTY when it is
important to avoid this.
The following three file name translation flags exist only on
GNU/Hurd systems.
-- Macro: int O_IGNORE_CTTY
Do not recognize the named file as the controlling terminal, even
if it refers to the processs existing controlling terminal device.
Operations on the new file descriptor will never induce job control
signals. *Note Job Control::.
-- Macro: int O_NOLINK
If the named file is a symbolic link, open the link itself instead
of the file it refers to. (fstat on the new file descriptor will
return the information returned by lstat on the links name.)
-- Macro: int O_NOTRANS
If the named file is specially translated, do not invoke the
translator. Open the bare file the translator itself sees.
The open-time action flags tell open to do additional operations
which are not really related to opening the file. The reason to do them
as part of open instead of in separate calls is that open can do
them atomically.
-- Macro: int O_TRUNC
Truncate the file to zero length. This option is only useful for
regular files, not special files such as directories or FIFOs.
POSIX.1 requires that you open the file for writing to use
O_TRUNC. In BSD and GNU you must have permission to write the
file to truncate it, but you need not open for write access.
This is the only open-time action flag specified by POSIX.1. There
is no good reason for truncation to be done by open, instead of
by calling ftruncate afterwards. The O_TRUNC flag existed in
Unix before ftruncate was invented, and is retained for backward
compatibility.
The remaining operating modes are BSD extensions. They exist only on
some systems. On other systems, these macros are not defined.
-- Macro: int O_SHLOCK
Acquire a shared lock on the file, as with flock. *Note File
Locks::.
If O_CREAT is specified, the locking is done atomically when
creating the file. You are guaranteed that no other process will
get the lock on the new file first.
-- Macro: int O_EXLOCK
Acquire an exclusive lock on the file, as with flock. *Note File
Locks::. This is atomic like O_SHLOCK.

File: libc.info, Node: Operating Modes, Next: Getting File Status Flags, Prev: Open-time Flags, Up: File Status Flags
13.14.3 I/O Operating Modes
---------------------------
The operating modes affect how input and output operations using a file
descriptor work. These flags are set by open and can be fetched and
changed with fcntl.
-- Macro: int O_APPEND
The bit that enables append mode for the file. If set, then all
write operations write the data at the end of the file, extending
it, regardless of the current file position. This is the only
reliable way to append to a file. In append mode, you are
guaranteed that the data you write will always go to the current
end of the file, regardless of other processes writing to the file.
Conversely, if you simply set the file position to the end of file
and write, then another process can extend the file after you set
the file position but before you write, resulting in your data
appearing someplace before the real end of file.
-- Macro: int O_NONBLOCK
The bit that enables nonblocking mode for the file. If this bit is
set, read requests on the file can return immediately with a
failure status if there is no input immediately available, instead
of blocking. Likewise, write requests can also return
immediately with a failure status if the output cant be written
immediately.
Note that the O_NONBLOCK flag is overloaded as both an I/O
operating mode and a file name translation flag; *note Open-time
Flags::.
-- Macro: int O_NDELAY
This is an obsolete name for O_NONBLOCK, provided for
compatibility with BSD. It is not defined by the POSIX.1 standard.
The remaining operating modes are BSD and GNU extensions. They exist
only on some systems. On other systems, these macros are not defined.
-- Macro: int O_ASYNC
The bit that enables asynchronous input mode. If set, then SIGIO
signals will be generated when input is available. *Note Interrupt
Input::.
Asynchronous input mode is a BSD feature.
-- Macro: int O_FSYNC
The bit that enables synchronous writing for the file. If set,
each write call will make sure the data is reliably stored on
disk before returning.
Synchronous writing is a BSD feature.
-- Macro: int O_SYNC
This is another name for O_FSYNC. They have the same value.
-- Macro: int O_NOATIME
If this bit is set, read will not update the access time of the
file. *Note File Times::. This is used by programs that do
backups, so that backing a file up does not count as reading it.
Only the owner of the file or the superuser may use this bit.
This is a GNU extension.

File: libc.info, Node: Getting File Status Flags, Prev: Operating Modes, Up: File Status Flags
13.14.4 Getting and Setting File Status Flags
---------------------------------------------
The fcntl function can fetch or change file status flags.
-- Macro: int F_GETFL
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to read the
file status flags for the open file with descriptor FILEDES.
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is a
nonnegative number which can be interpreted as the bitwise OR of
the individual flags. Since the file access modes are not
single-bit values, you can mask off other bits in the returned
flags with O_ACCMODE to compare them.
In case of an error, fcntl returns -1. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this command:
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is invalid.
-- Macro: int F_SETFL
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to set the
file status flags for the open file corresponding to the FILEDES
argument. This command requires a third int argument to specify
the new flags, so the call looks like this:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_SETFL, NEW-FLAGS)
You cant change the access mode for the file in this way; that is,
whether the file descriptor was opened for reading or writing.
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is an
unspecified value other than -1, which indicates an error. The
error conditions are the same as for the F_GETFL command.
If you want to modify the file status flags, you should get the
current flags with F_GETFL and modify the value. Dont assume that
the flags listed here are the only ones that are implemented; your
program may be run years from now and more flags may exist then. For
example, here is a function to set or clear the flag O_NONBLOCK
without altering any other flags:
/* Set the O_NONBLOCK flag of DESC if VALUE is nonzero,
or clear the flag if VALUE is 0.
Return 0 on success, or -1 on error with errno set. */
int
set_nonblock_flag (int desc, int value)
{
int oldflags = fcntl (desc, F_GETFL, 0);
/* If reading the flags failed, return error indication now. */
if (oldflags == -1)
return -1;
/* Set just the flag we want to set. */
if (value != 0)
oldflags |= O_NONBLOCK;
else
oldflags &= ~O_NONBLOCK;
/* Store modified flag word in the descriptor. */
return fcntl (desc, F_SETFL, oldflags);
}

File: libc.info, Node: File Locks, Next: Open File Description Locks, Prev: File Status Flags, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.15 File Locks
================
This section describes record locks that are associated with the
process. There is also a different type of record lock that is
associated with the open file description instead of the process. *Note
Open File Description Locks::.
The remaining fcntl commands are used to support "record locking",
which permits multiple cooperating programs to prevent each other from
simultaneously accessing parts of a file in error-prone ways.
An "exclusive" or "write" lock gives a process exclusive access for
writing to the specified part of the file. While a write lock is in
place, no other process can lock that part of the file.
A "shared" or "read" lock prohibits any other process from requesting
a write lock on the specified part of the file. However, other
processes can request read locks.
The read and write functions do not actually check to see whether
there are any locks in place. If you want to implement a locking
protocol for a file shared by multiple processes, your application must
do explicit fcntl calls to request and clear locks at the appropriate
points.
Locks are associated with processes. A process can only have one
kind of lock set for each byte of a given file. When any file
descriptor for that file is closed by the process, all of the locks that
process holds on that file are released, even if the locks were made
using other descriptors that remain open. Likewise, locks are released
when a process exits, and are not inherited by child processes created
using fork (*note Creating a Process::).
When making a lock, use a struct flock to specify what kind of lock
and where. This data type and the associated macros for the fcntl
function are declared in the header file fcntl.h.
-- Data Type: struct flock
This structure is used with the fcntl function to describe a file
lock. It has these members:
short int l_type
Specifies the type of the lock; one of F_RDLCK, F_WRLCK,
or F_UNLCK.
short int l_whence
This corresponds to the WHENCE argument to fseek or lseek,
and specifies what the offset is relative to. Its value can
be one of SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END.
off_t l_start
This specifies the offset of the start of the region to which
the lock applies, and is given in bytes relative to the point
specified by l_whence member.
off_t l_len
This specifies the length of the region to be locked. A value
of 0 is treated specially; it means the region extends to
the end of the file.
pid_t l_pid
This field is the process ID (*note Process Creation
Concepts::) of the process holding the lock. It is filled in
by calling fcntl with the F_GETLK command, but is ignored
when making a lock. If the conflicting lock is an open file
description lock (*note Open File Description Locks::), then
this field will be set to -1.
-- Macro: int F_GETLK
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should get information about a lock. This command requires
a third argument of type struct flock * to be passed to fcntl,
so that the form of the call is:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_GETLK, LOCKP)
If there is a lock already in place that would block the lock
described by the LOCKP argument, information about that lock
overwrites *LOCKP. Existing locks are not reported if they are
compatible with making a new lock as specified. Thus, you should
specify a lock type of F_WRLCK if you want to find out about both
read and write locks, or F_RDLCK if you want to find out about
write locks only.
There might be more than one lock affecting the region specified by
the LOCKP argument, but fcntl only returns information about one
of them. The l_whence member of the LOCKP structure is set to
SEEK_SET and the l_start and l_len fields set to identify the
locked region.
If no lock applies, the only change to the LOCKP structure is to
update the l_type to a value of F_UNLCK.
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is an
unspecified value other than -1, which is reserved to indicate an
error. The following errno error conditions are defined for this
command:
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is invalid.
EINVAL
Either the LOCKP argument doesnt specify valid lock
information, or the file associated with FILEDES doesnt
support locks.
-- Macro: int F_SETLK
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should set or clear a lock. This command requires a third
argument of type struct flock * to be passed to fcntl, so that
the form of the call is:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_SETLK, LOCKP)
If the process already has a lock on any part of the region, the
old lock on that part is replaced with the new lock. You can
remove a lock by specifying a lock type of F_UNLCK.
If the lock cannot be set, fcntl returns immediately with a value
of -1. This function does not block waiting for other processes to
release locks. If fcntl succeeds, it return a value other than
-1.
The following errno error conditions are defined for this
function:
EAGAIN
EACCES
The lock cannot be set because it is blocked by an existing
lock on the file. Some systems use EAGAIN in this case, and
other systems use EACCES; your program should treat them
alike, after F_SETLK. (GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd systems
always use EAGAIN.)
EBADF
Either: the FILEDES argument is invalid; you requested a read
lock but the FILEDES is not open for read access; or, you
requested a write lock but the FILEDES is not open for write
access.
EINVAL
Either the LOCKP argument doesnt specify valid lock
information, or the file associated with FILEDES doesnt
support locks.
ENOLCK
The system has run out of file lock resources; there are
already too many file locks in place.
Well-designed file systems never report this error, because
they have no limitation on the number of locks. However, you
must still take account of the possibility of this error, as
it could result from network access to a file system on
another machine.
-- Macro: int F_SETLKW
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should set or clear a lock. It is just like the F_SETLK
command, but causes the process to block (or wait) until the
request can be specified.
This command requires a third argument of type struct flock *, as
for the F_SETLK command.
The fcntl return values and errors are the same as for the
F_SETLK command, but these additional errno error conditions
are defined for this command:
EINTR
The function was interrupted by a signal while it was waiting.
*Note Interrupted Primitives::.
EDEADLK
The specified region is being locked by another process. But
that process is waiting to lock a region which the current
process has locked, so waiting for the lock would result in
deadlock. The system does not guarantee that it will detect
all such conditions, but it lets you know if it notices one.
The following macros are defined for use as values for the l_type
member of the flock structure. The values are integer constants.
F_RDLCK
This macro is used to specify a read (or shared) lock.
F_WRLCK
This macro is used to specify a write (or exclusive) lock.
F_UNLCK
This macro is used to specify that the region is unlocked.
As an example of a situation where file locking is useful, consider a
program that can be run simultaneously by several different users, that
logs status information to a common file. One example of such a program
might be a game that uses a file to keep track of high scores. Another
example might be a program that records usage or accounting information
for billing purposes.
Having multiple copies of the program simultaneously writing to the
file could cause the contents of the file to become mixed up. But you
can prevent this kind of problem by setting a write lock on the file
before actually writing to the file.
If the program also needs to read the file and wants to make sure
that the contents of the file are in a consistent state, then it can
also use a read lock. While the read lock is set, no other process can
lock that part of the file for writing.
Remember that file locks are only an _advisory_ protocol for
controlling access to a file. There is still potential for access to
the file by programs that dont use the lock protocol.

File: libc.info, Node: Open File Description Locks, Next: Open File Description Locks Example, Prev: File Locks, Up: Low-Level I/O
13.16 Open File Description Locks
=================================
In contrast to process-associated record locks (*note File Locks::),
open file description record locks are associated with an open file
description rather than a process.
Using fcntl to apply an open file description lock on a region that
already has an existing open file description lock that was created via
the same file descriptor will never cause a lock conflict.
Open file description locks are also inherited by child processes
across fork, or clone with CLONE_FILES set (*note Creating a
Process::), along with the file descriptor.
It is important to distinguish between the open file _description_
(an instance of an open file, usually created by a call to open) and
an open file _descriptor_, which is a numeric value that refers to the
open file description. The locks described here are associated with the
open file _description_ and not the open file _descriptor_.
Using dup (*note Duplicating Descriptors::) to copy a file
descriptor does not give you a new open file description, but rather
copies a reference to an existing open file description and assigns it
to a new file descriptor. Thus, open file description locks set on a
file descriptor cloned by dup will never conflict with open file
description locks set on the original descriptor since they refer to the
same open file description. Depending on the range and type of lock
involved, the original lock may be modified by a F_OFD_SETLK or
F_OFD_SETLKW command in this situation however.
Open file description locks always conflict with process-associated
locks, even if acquired by the same process or on the same open file
descriptor.
Open file description locks use the same struct flock as
process-associated locks as an argument (*note File Locks::) and the
macros for the command values are also declared in the header file
fcntl.h. To use them, the macro _GNU_SOURCE must be defined prior
to including any header file.
In contrast to process-associated locks, any struct flock used as
an argument to open file description lock commands must have the l_pid
value set to 0. Also, when returning information about an open file
description lock in a F_GETLK or F_OFD_GETLK request, the l_pid
field in struct flock will be set to -1 to indicate that the lock is
not associated with a process.
When the same struct flock is reused as an argument to a
F_OFD_SETLK or F_OFD_SETLKW request after being used for an
F_OFD_GETLK request, it is necessary to inspect and reset the l_pid
field to 0.
-- Macro: int F_OFD_GETLK
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should get information about a lock. This command requires
a third argument of type struct flock * to be passed to fcntl,
so that the form of the call is:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_OFD_GETLK, LOCKP)
If there is a lock already in place that would block the lock
described by the LOCKP argument, information about that lock is
written to *LOCKP. Existing locks are not reported if they are
compatible with making a new lock as specified. Thus, you should
specify a lock type of F_WRLCK if you want to find out about both
read and write locks, or F_RDLCK if you want to find out about
write locks only.
There might be more than one lock affecting the region specified by
the LOCKP argument, but fcntl only returns information about one
of them. Which lock is returned in this situation is undefined.
The l_whence member of the LOCKP structure are set to SEEK_SET
and the l_start and l_len fields are set to identify the locked
region.
If no conflicting lock exists, the only change to the LOCKP
structure is to update the l_type field to the value F_UNLCK.
The normal return value from fcntl with this command is either 0
on success or -1, which indicates an error. The following errno
error conditions are defined for this command:
EBADF
The FILEDES argument is invalid.
EINVAL
Either the LOCKP argument doesnt specify valid lock
information, the operating system kernel doesnt support open
file description locks, or the file associated with FILEDES
doesnt support locks.
-- Macro: int F_OFD_SETLK
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should set or clear a lock. This command requires a third
argument of type struct flock * to be passed to fcntl, so that
the form of the call is:
fcntl (FILEDES, F_OFD_SETLK, LOCKP)
If the open file already has a lock on any part of the region, the
old lock on that part is replaced with the new lock. You can
remove a lock by specifying a lock type of F_UNLCK.
If the lock cannot be set, fcntl returns immediately with a value
of -1. This command does not wait for other tasks to release
locks. If fcntl succeeds, it returns 0.
The following errno error conditions are defined for this
command:
EAGAIN
The lock cannot be set because it is blocked by an existing
lock on the file.
EBADF
Either: the FILEDES argument is invalid; you requested a read
lock but the FILEDES is not open for read access; or, you
requested a write lock but the FILEDES is not open for write
access.
EINVAL
Either the LOCKP argument doesnt specify valid lock
information, the operating system kernel doesnt support open
file description locks, or the file associated with FILEDES
doesnt support locks.
ENOLCK
The system has run out of file lock resources; there are
already too many file locks in place.
Well-designed file systems never report this error, because
they have no limitation on the number of locks. However, you
must still take account of the possibility of this error, as
it could result from network access to a file system on
another machine.
-- Macro: int F_OFD_SETLKW
This macro is used as the COMMAND argument to fcntl, to specify
that it should set or clear a lock. It is just like the
F_OFD_SETLK command, but causes the process to wait until the
request can be completed.
This command requires a third argument of type struct flock *, as
for the F_OFD_SETLK command.
The fcntl return values and errors are the same as for the
F_OFD_SETLK command, but these additional errno error
conditions are defined for this command:
EINTR
The function was interrupted by a signal while it was waiting.
*Note Interrupted Primitives::.
Open file description locks are useful in the same sorts of
situations as process-associated locks. They can also be used to
synchronize file access between threads within the same process by
having each thread perform its own open of the file, to obtain its own
open file description.
Because open file description locks are automatically freed only upon
closing the last file descriptor that refers to the open file
description, this locking mechanism avoids the possibility that locks
are inadvertently released due to a library routine opening and closing
a file without the application being aware.
As with process-associated locks, open file description locks are
advisory.