]> git.saurik.com Git - apple/libc.git/blame - stdio/stdio.3
Libc-594.9.1.tar.gz
[apple/libc.git] / stdio / stdio.3
CommitLineData
224c7076
A
1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
13.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
18.\" without specific prior written permission.
19.\"
20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
30.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
31.\"
32.\" @(#)stdio.3 8.7 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
33.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/stdio/stdio.3,v 1.26 2004/07/02 23:52:12 ru Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd January 10, 2003
36.Dt STDIO 3
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm stdio
40.Nd standard input/output library functions
41.Sh LIBRARY
42.Lb libc
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.In stdio.h
45.Vt FILE *stdin ;
46.Vt FILE *stdout ;
47.Vt FILE *stderr ;
48.Pp
49Note:
50The current implementation does not allow these variables
51to be evaluated at C compile/link time.
52That is, a runtime calculation must be performed, such as:
53.Bd -literal -offset indent
54#include <stdio.h>
55
56static FILE *var;
57
58int main() {
59 var = stdout;
60}
61.Ed
62.Sh DESCRIPTION
63The standard
64.Tn I/O
65library provides a simple and efficient buffered stream
66.Tn I/O
67interface.
68Input and output is mapped into logical data streams
69and the physical
70.Tn I/O
71characteristics are concealed.
72The functions and macros are listed
73below; more information is available from the individual man pages.
74.Pp
75A stream is associated with an external file (which may be a physical
76device) by
77.Em opening
78a file, which may involve creating a new file.
79Creating an
80existing file causes its former contents to be discarded.
81If a file can support positioning requests (such as a disk file, as opposed
82to a terminal) then a
83.Em file position indicator
84associated with the stream is positioned at the start of the file (byte
85zero), unless the file is opened with append mode.
86If append mode
87is used, the position indicator will be placed at the end-of-file.
88The position indicator is maintained by subsequent reads, writes
89and positioning requests.
90All input occurs as if the characters
91were read by successive calls to the
92.Xr fgetc 3
93function; all output takes place as if all characters were
94written by successive calls to the
95.Xr fputc 3
96function.
97.Pp
98A file is disassociated from a stream by
99.Em closing
100the file.
101Output streams are flushed (any unwritten buffer contents are transferred
102to the host environment) before the stream is disassociated from the file.
103The value of a pointer to a
104.Dv FILE
105object is indeterminate (garbage) after a file is closed.
106.Pp
107A file may be subsequently reopened, by the same or another program
108execution, and its contents reclaimed or modified (if it can be repositioned
109at the start).
110If the main function returns to its original caller, or
111the
112.Xr exit 3
113function is called, all open files are closed (hence all output
114streams are flushed) before program termination.
115Other methods
116of program termination may not close files properly and hence
117buffered output may be lost.
118In particular,
119.Xr _exit 2
120does not flush stdio files.
121Neither does an exit due to a signal.
122Buffers are flushed by
123.Xr abort 3
124as required by POSIX, although previous implementations did not.
125.Pp
126This implementation makes no distinction between
127.Dq text
128and
129.Dq binary
130streams.
131In effect, all streams are binary.
132No translation is performed and no extra padding appears on any stream.
133.Pp
134At program startup, three streams are predefined and need not be
135opened explicitly:
136.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
137.It
138.Em standard input
139(for reading conventional input),
140.It
141.Em standard output
142(for writing conventional output), and
143.It
144.Em standard error
145(for writing diagnostic output).
146.El
147These streams are abbreviated
148.Dv stdin , stdout
149and
150.Dv stderr .
151Initially, the standard error stream
152is unbuffered; the standard input and output streams are
153fully buffered if and only if the streams do not refer to
154an interactive or
155.Dq terminal
156device, as determined by the
157.Xr isatty 3
158function.
159In fact,
160.Em all
161freshly-opened streams that refer to terminal devices
162default to line buffering, and
163pending output to such streams is written automatically
164whenever such an input stream is read.
165Note that this applies only to
166.Dq "true reads" ;
167if the read request can be satisfied by existing buffered data,
168no automatic flush will occur.
169In these cases,
170or when a large amount of computation is done after printing
171part of a line on an output terminal, it is necessary to
172.Xr fflush 3
173the standard output before going off and computing so that the output
174will appear.
175Alternatively, these defaults may be modified via the
176.Xr setvbuf 3
177function.
178.Pp
179The
180.Nm
181library is a part of the library
182.Nm libc
183and routines are automatically loaded as needed by the C compiler.
184The
185.Tn SYNOPSIS
186sections of the following manual pages indicate which include files
187are to be used, what the compiler declaration for the function
188looks like and which external variables are of interest.
189.Pp
190The following are defined as macros;
191these names may not be re-used
192without first removing their current definitions with
193.Ic #undef :
194.Dv BUFSIZ ,
195.Dv EOF ,
196.Dv FILENAME_MAX ,
197.Dv FOPEN_MAX ,
198.Dv L_ctermid ,
199.Dv L_cuserid ,
200.Dv L_tmpnam ,
201.Dv NULL ,
202.Dv P_tmpdir ,
203.Dv SEEK_CUR ,
204.Dv SEEK_END ,
205.Dv SEEK_SET ,
206.Dv TMP_MAX ,
207.Dv clearerr ,
208.Dv clearerr_unlocked ,
209.Dv feof ,
210.Dv feof_unlocked ,
211.Dv ferror ,
212.Dv ferror_unlocked ,
213.Dv fileno ,
214.Dv fileno_unlocked ,
215.Dv fropen ,
216.Dv fwopen ,
217.Dv getc ,
218.Dv getc_unlocked ,
219.Dv getchar ,
220.Dv getchar_unlocked ,
221.Dv putc ,
222.Dv putc_unlocked ,
223.Dv putchar ,
224.Dv putchar_unlocked ,
225.Dv stderr ,
226.Dv stdin
227and
228.Dv stdout .
229Function versions of the macro functions
230.Dv clearerr ,
231.Dv clearerr_unlocked ,
232.Dv feof ,
233.Dv feof_unlocked ,
234.Dv ferror ,
235.Dv ferror_unlocked ,
236.Dv fileno ,
237.Dv fileno_unlocked ,
238.Dv getc ,
239.Dv getc_unlocked ,
240.Dv getchar ,
241.Dv getchar_unlocked ,
242.Dv putc ,
243.Dv putc_unlocked ,
244.Dv putchar ,
245and
246.Dv putchar_unlocked
247exist and will be used if the macro
248definitions are explicitly removed.
249.Sh LEGACY SYNOPSIS
250The -D_NONSTD_SOURCE flag can be used
251to allow stdin, stdout, and/or stderr
252to be evaluated at compile/link time, as:
253.Bd -literal -offset indent
254#include <stdio.h>
255
256static FILE *var = stdout;
257.Ed
258.Sh SEE ALSO
259.Xr close 2 ,
260.Xr open 2 ,
261.Xr read 2 ,
262.Xr write 2 ,
263.Xr compat 5
264.Sh BUGS
265The standard buffered functions do not interact well with certain other
266library and system functions, especially
267.Xr vfork 2 .
268.Sh STANDARDS
269The
270.Nm
271library conforms to
272.St -isoC-99 .
273.Sh LIST OF FUNCTIONS
274.Bl -column "Description"
275.It Sy "Function Description"
276.It "asprintf formatted output conversion"
277.It ""
278.It "clearerr check and reset stream status"
279.It ""
280.It "fclose close a stream"
281.It "fdopen stream open functions"
282.It "feof check and reset stream status"
283.It "ferror check and reset stream status"
284.It "fflush flush a stream"
285.It "fgetc get next character or word from input stream"
286.It "fgetln get a line from a stream"
287.It "fgetpos reposition a stream"
288.It "fgets get a line from a stream"
289.It "fgetwc get next wide character from input stream"
290.It "fgetws get a line of wide characters from a stream"
291.It "fileno check and reset stream status"
292.It "fopen stream open functions"
293.It "fprintf formatted output conversion"
294.It "fpurge flush a stream"
295.It "fputc output a character or word to a stream"
296.It "fputs output a line to a stream"
297.It "fputwc output a wide character to a stream"
298.It "fputws output a line of wide characters to a stream"
299.It "fread binary stream input/output"
300.It "freopen stream open functions"
301.It "fropen open a stream"
302.It "fscanf input format conversion"
303.It "fseek reposition a stream"
304.It "fsetpos reposition a stream"
305.It "ftell reposition a stream"
306.It "funopen open a stream"
307.It "fwide set/get orientation of stream"
308.It "fwopen open a stream"
309.It "fwprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
310.It "fwrite binary stream input/output"
311.It ""
312.It "getc get next character or word from input stream"
313.It "getchar get next character or word from input stream"
314.It "gets get a line from a stream"
315.It "getw get next character or word from input stream"
316.It "getwc get next wide character from input stream"
317.It "getwchar get next wide character from input stream"
318.It ""
319.It "mkdtemp create unique temporary directory"
320.It "mkstemp create unique temporary file"
321.It "mktemp create unique temporary file"
322.It ""
323.It "perror system error messages"
324.It "printf formatted output conversion"
325.It "putc output a character or word to a stream"
326.It "putchar output a character or word to a stream"
327.It "puts output a line to a stream"
328.It "putw output a character or word to a stream"
329.It "putwc output a wide character to a stream"
330.It "putwchar output a wide character to a stream"
331.It ""
332.It "remove remove directory entry"
333.It "rewind reposition a stream"
334.It ""
335.It "scanf input format conversion"
336.It "setbuf stream buffering operations"
337.It "setbuffer stream buffering operations"
338.It "setlinebuf stream buffering operations"
339.It "setvbuf stream buffering operations"
340.It "snprintf formatted output conversion"
341.It "sprintf formatted output conversion"
342.It "sscanf input format conversion"
343.It "strerror system error messages"
344.It "swprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
345.It "sys_errlist system error messages"
346.It "sys_nerr system error messages"
347.It ""
348.It "tempnam temporary file routines"
349.It "tmpfile temporary file routines"
350.It "tmpnam temporary file routines"
351.It ""
352.It "ungetc un-get character from input stream"
353.It "ungetwc un-get wide character from input stream"
354.It ""
355.It "vasprintf formatted output conversion"
356.It "vfprintf formatted output conversion"
357.It "vfscanf input format conversion"
358.It "vfwprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
359.It "vprintf formatted output conversion"
360.It "vscanf input format conversion"
361.It "vsnprintf formatted output conversion"
362.It "vsprintf formatted output conversion"
363.It "vsscanf input format conversion"
364.It "vswprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
365.It "vwprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
366.It ""
367.It "wprintf formatted wide character output conversion"
368.El