xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/stdio/stdio.3 (revision 27578b9aac214cc7796ead81dcc5427e79d5f2a0)
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34.\"     @(#)stdio.3	8.7 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
35.\"
36.Dd April 19, 1994
37.Dt STDIO 3
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm stdio
41.Nd standard input/output library functions
42.Sh LIBRARY
43.Lb libc
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.Fd #include <stdio.h>
46.Fd FILE *stdin;
47.Fd FILE *stdout;
48.Fd FILE *stderr;
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The standard
51.Tn I/O
52library provides a simple and efficient buffered stream
53.Tn I/O
54interface.
55Input and output is mapped into logical data streams
56and the physical
57.Tn I/O
58characteristics are concealed. The functions and macros are listed
59below; more information is available from the individual man pages.
60.Pp
61A stream is associated with an external file (which may be a physical
62device) by
63.Em opening
64a file, which may involve creating a new file. Creating an
65existing file causes its former contents to be discarded.
66If a file can support positioning requests (such as a disk file, as opposed
67to a terminal) then a
68.Em file position indicator
69associated with the stream is positioned at the start of the file (byte
70zero), unless the file is opened with append mode. If append mode
71is used, the position indicator will be placed the end-of-file.
72The position indicator is maintained by subsequent reads, writes
73and positioning requests. All input occurs as if the characters
74were read by successive calls to the
75.Xr fgetc 3
76function; all output takes place as if all characters were
77read by successive calls to the
78.Xr fputc 3
79function.
80.Pp
81A file is disassociated from a stream by
82.Em closing
83the file.
84Output streams are flushed (any unwritten buffer contents are transferred
85to the host environment) before the stream is disassociated from the file.
86The value of a pointer to a
87.Dv FILE
88object is indeterminate after a file is closed (garbage).
89.Pp
90A file may be subsequently reopened, by the same or another program
91execution, and its contents reclaimed or modified (if it can be repositioned
92at the start).  If the main function returns to its original caller, or
93the
94.Xr exit 3
95function is called, all open files are closed (hence all output
96streams are flushed) before program termination.  Other methods
97of program termination, such as
98.Xr abort 3
99do not bother about closing files properly.
100.Pp
101This implementation needs and makes
102no distinction between
103.Dq text
104and
105.Dq binary
106streams.
107In effect, all streams are binary.
108No translation is performed and no extra padding appears on any stream.
109.Pp
110At program startup, three streams are predefined and need not be
111opened explicitly:
112.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
113.It
114.Em standard input
115(for reading conventional input),
116.It
117.Em standard output
118(for writing conventional output), and
119.It
120.Em standard error
121(for writing diagnostic output).
122.El
123These streams are abbreviated
124.Em stdin , stdout
125and
126.Em stderr .
127Initially, the standard error stream
128is unbuffered; the standard input and output streams are
129fully buffered if and only if the streams do not refer to
130an interactive or
131.Dq terminal
132device, as determined by the
133.Xr isatty 3
134function.
135In fact,
136.Em all
137freshly-opened streams that refer to terminal devices
138default to line buffering, and
139pending output to such streams is written automatically
140whenever an such an input stream is read.
141Note that this applies only to
142.Dq "true reads" ;
143if the read request can be satisfied by existing buffered data,
144no automatic flush will occur.
145In these cases,
146or when a large amount of computation is done after printing
147part of a line on an output terminal, it is necessary to
148.Xr fflush 3
149the standard output before going off and computing so that the output
150will appear.
151Alternatively, these defaults may be modified via the
152.Xr setvbuf 3
153function.
154.Pp
155The
156.Nm
157library is a part of the library
158.Pa libc.a
159and routines are automatically loaded as needed by compilers such
160as
161.Xr cc 1 .
162The
163.Tn SYNOPSIS
164sections of the following manual pages indicate which include files
165are to be used, what the compiler declaration for the function
166looks like and which external variables are of interest.
167.Pp
168The following are defined as macros; these names may not be re-used
169without first removing their current definitions with
170.Dv #undef :
171.Dv BUFSIZ ,
172.Dv EOF ,
173.Dv FILENAME_MAX ,
174.Dv FOPEN_MAX ,
175.Dv L_cuserid ,
176.Dv L_ctermid ,
177.Dv L_tmpnam ,
178.Dv NULL ,
179.Dv SEEK_END ,
180.Dv SEEK_SET ,
181.Dv SEE_CUR ,
182.Dv TMP_MAX ,
183.Fn clearerr ,
184.Fn feof ,
185.Fn ferror ,
186.Fn fileno ,
187.Fn freopen ,
188.Fn fwopen ,
189.Fn getc ,
190.Fn getchar ,
191.Fn putc ,
192.Fn putchar ,
193.Dv stderr ,
194.Dv stdin ,
195.Dv stdout .
196Function versions of the macro functions
197.Fn feof ,
198.Fn ferror ,
199.Fn clearerr ,
200.Fn fileno ,
201.Fn getc ,
202.Fn getchar ,
203.Fn putc ,
204and
205.Fn putchar
206exist and will be used if the macros definitions are explicitly removed.
207.Sh SEE ALSO
208.Xr close 2 ,
209.Xr open 2 ,
210.Xr read 2 ,
211.Xr write 2
212.Sh STANDARDS
213The
214.Nm
215library conforms to
216.St -ansiC .
217.Sh LIST OF FUNCTIONS
218.Bl -column "Description"
219.Sy Function	Description
220clearerr	check and reset stream status
221fclose	close a stream
222fdopen	stream open functions
223feof	check and reset stream status
224ferror	check and reset stream status
225fflush	flush a stream
226fgetc	get next character or word from input stream
227fgetln	get a line from a stream
228fgetpos	reposition a stream
229fgets	get a line from a stream
230fileno	check and reset stream status
231fopen	stream open functions
232fprintf	formatted output conversion
233fpurge	flush a stream
234fputc	output a character or word to a stream
235fputs	output a line to a stream
236fread	binary stream input/output
237freopen	stream open functions
238fropen	open a stream
239fscanf	input format conversion
240fseek	reposition a stream
241fsetpos	reposition a stream
242ftell	reposition a stream
243funopen	open a stream
244fwopen	open a stream
245fwrite	binary stream input/output
246getc	get next character or word from input stream
247getchar	get next character or word from input stream
248gets	get a line from a stream
249getw	get next character or word from input stream
250mkstemp	create unique temporary file
251mktemp	create unique temporary file
252perror	system error messages
253printf	formatted output conversion
254putc	output a character or word to a stream
255putchar	output a character or word to a stream
256puts	output a line to a stream
257putw	output a character or word to a stream
258remove	remove directory entry
259rewind	reposition a stream
260scanf	input format conversion
261setbuf	stream buffering operations
262setbuffer	stream buffering operations
263setlinebuf	stream buffering operations
264setvbuf	stream buffering operations
265snprintf	formatted output conversion
266sprintf	formatted output conversion
267sscanf	input format conversion
268strerror	system error messages
269sys_errlist	system error messages
270sys_nerr	system error messages
271tempnam	temporary file routines
272tmpfile	temporary file routines
273tmpnam	temporary file routines
274ungetc	un-get character from input stream
275vfprintf	formatted output conversion
276vfscanf	input format conversion
277vprintf	formatted output conversion
278vscanf	input format conversion
279vsnprintf	formatted output conversion
280vsprintf	formatted output conversion
281vsscanf	input format conversion
282.El
283.Sh BUGS
284The standard buffered functions do not interact well with certain other
285library and system functions, especially
286.Xr vfork 2
287and
288.Xr abort 3 .
289