.\" Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" %sccs.include.redist.man% .\" .\" @(#)truncate.2 6.8 (Berkeley) 06/23/90 .\" .TH TRUNCATE 2 "" .UC 5 .SH NAME truncate \- truncate a file to a specified length .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .ft B truncate(path, length) char *path; off_t length; .PP .ft B ftruncate(fd, length) int fd; off_t length; .fi .SH DESCRIPTION .I Truncate causes the file named by .I path or referenced by .I fd to be truncated to at most .I length bytes in size. If the file previously was larger than this size, the extra data is lost. With .IR ftruncate , the file must be open for writing. .SH "RETURN VALUES A value of 0 is returned if the call succeeds. If the call fails a \-1 is returned, and the global variable \fIerrno\fP specifies the error. .SH "ERRORS .I Truncate succeeds unless: .TP 15 [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. .TP 15 [EINVAL] The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. .TP 15 [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. .TP 15 [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. .TP 15 [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. .TP 15 [EACCES] The named file is not writable by the user. .TP 15 [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. .TP 15 [EISDIR] The named file is a directory. .TP 15 [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. .TP 15 [ETXTBSY] The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being executed. .TP 15 [EIO] An I/O error occurred updating the inode. .TP 15 [EFAULT] .I Path points outside the process's allocated address space. .PP .I Ftruncate succeeds unless: .TP 15 [EBADF] The .I fd is not a valid descriptor. .TP 15 [EINVAL] The .I fd references a socket, not a file. .TP 15 [EINVAL] The .I fd is not open for writing. .SH "SEE ALSO" open(2) .SH BUGS These calls should be generalized to allow ranges of bytes in a file to be discarded.