xref: /openbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/send.2 (revision 50b7afb2c2c0993b0894d4e34bf857cb13ed9c80)
1.\"	$OpenBSD: send.2,v 1.30 2014/04/07 10:04:17 mpi Exp $
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31.\"     @(#)send.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 2/21/94
32.\"
33.Dd $Mdocdate: April 7 2014 $
34.Dt SEND 2
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm send ,
38.Nm sendto ,
39.Nm sendmsg
40.Nd send a message from a socket
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
43.Fd #include <sys/socket.h>
44.Ft ssize_t
45.Fn send "int s" "const void *msg" "size_t len" "int flags"
46.Ft ssize_t
47.Fn sendto "int s" "const void *msg" "size_t len" "int flags" "const struct sockaddr *to" "socklen_t tolen"
48.Ft ssize_t
49.Fn sendmsg "int s" "const struct msghdr *msg" "int flags"
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51.Fn send ,
52.Fn sendto ,
53and
54.Fn sendmsg
55are used to transmit a message to another socket.
56.Fn send
57may be used only when the socket is in a
58.Em connected
59state, while
60.Fn sendto
61and
62.Fn sendmsg
63may be used at any time.
64.Pp
65The address of the target is given by
66.Fa to
67with
68.Fa tolen
69specifying its size.
70The length of the message is given by
71.Fa len .
72If the message is too long to pass atomically through the
73underlying protocol, the error
74.Er EMSGSIZE
75is returned, and
76the message is not transmitted.
77.Pp
78No indication of failure to deliver is implicit in a
79.Fn send .
80Locally detected errors are indicated by a return value of \-1.
81.Pp
82If no messages space is available at the socket to hold
83the message to be transmitted, then
84.Fn send
85normally blocks, unless the socket has been placed in
86non-blocking I/O mode.
87The
88.Xr select 2
89or
90.Xr poll 2
91system calls may be used to determine when it is possible to
92send more data.
93.Pp
94The
95.Fa flags
96parameter may include one or more of the following:
97.Pp
98.Bl -tag -width "MSG_DONTROUTEXX" -offset indent -compact
99.It Dv MSG_OOB
100process out-of-band data
101.It Dv MSG_DONTROUTE
102bypass routing tables, silently ignored
103.It Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL
104don't send
105.Dv SIGPIPE
106.It Dv MSG_DONTWAIT
107don't block
108.El
109.Pp
110The flag
111.Dv MSG_OOB
112is used to send
113.Dq out-of-band
114data on sockets that support this notion (e.g.,
115.Dv SOCK_STREAM ) ;
116the underlying protocol must also support
117.Dq out-of-band
118data.
119.Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL
120is used to request not to send the
121.Dv SIGPIPE
122signal if an attempt to send is made on a socket that is shut down for
123writing or no longer connected.
124.Pp
125See
126.Xr recv 2
127for a description of the
128.Fa msghdr
129structure.
130.Sh RETURN VALUES
131The call returns the number of characters sent, or \-1
132if an error occurred.
133.Sh ERRORS
134.Fn send ,
135.Fn sendto ,
136and
137.Fn sendmsg
138fail if:
139.Bl -tag -width Er
140.It Bq Er EBADF
141An invalid descriptor was specified.
142.It Bq Er ENOTSOCK
143The argument
144.Fa s
145is not a socket.
146.It Bq Er EFAULT
147An invalid user space address was specified for a parameter.
148.It Bq Er EMSGSIZE
149The socket requires that message be sent atomically,
150and the size of the message to be sent made this impossible.
151.It Bq Er EAGAIN
152The socket is marked non-blocking and the requested operation
153would block.
154.It Bq Er ENOBUFS
155The system was unable to allocate an internal buffer.
156The operation may succeed when buffers become available.
157.It Bq Er ENOBUFS
158The output queue for a network interface was full.
159This generally indicates that the interface has stopped sending,
160but may be caused by transient congestion.
161.It Bq Er EACCES
162The
163.Dv SO_BROADCAST
164option is not set on the socket, and a broadcast address
165was given as the destination.
166.It Bq Er EHOSTUNREACH
167The destination address specified an unreachable host.
168.It Bq Er EINVAL
169The
170.Fa flags
171parameter is invalid.
172.It Bq Er EHOSTDOWN
173The destination address specified a host that is down.
174.It Bq Er ENETDOWN
175The destination address specified a network that is down.
176.It Bq Er ECONNREFUSED
177The destination host rejected the message (or a previous one).
178This error can only be returned by connected sockets.
179.It Bq Er ENOPROTOOPT
180There was a problem sending the message.
181This error can only be returned by connected sockets.
182.It Bq Er EDESTADDRREQ
183The socket is not connected, and no destination address was specified.
184.It Bq Er EISCONN
185The socket is already connected, and a destination address was specified.
186.It Bq Er EPIPE
187The socket is shut down for writing or not longer connected and the
188.Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL
189flag is set.
190.El
191.Pp
192In addition,
193.Fn send
194and
195.Fn sendto
196may return the following error:
197.Bl -tag -width Er
198.It Bq Er EINVAL
199.Fa len
200was larger than
201.Dv SSIZE_MAX .
202.El
203.Pp
204Also,
205.Fn sendmsg
206may return the following errors:
207.Bl -tag -width Er
208.It Bq Er EINVAL
209The sum of the
210.Fa iov_len
211values in the
212.Fa msg_iov
213array overflowed an
214.Em ssize_t .
215.It Bq Er EMSGSIZE
216The
217.Fa msg_iovlen
218member of
219.Fa msg
220was less than 0 or larger than
221.Dv IOV_MAX .
222.It Bq Er EAFNOSUPPORT
223Addresses in the specified address family cannot be used with this socket.
224.It Bq Er EMFILE
225The message contains control information utilizing
226.Xr CMSG_DATA 3
227to pass file descriptors, but too many file descriptors
228are already in-flight.
229.El
230.Sh SEE ALSO
231.Xr fcntl 2 ,
232.Xr getsockopt 2 ,
233.Xr poll 2 ,
234.Xr recv 2 ,
235.Xr select 2 ,
236.Xr socket 2 ,
237.Xr write 2 ,
238.Xr CMSG_DATA 3
239.Sh HISTORY
240The
241.Fn send
242function call appeared in
243.Bx 4.2 .
244