libc/stdio/fopen.3

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.\"     @(#)fopen.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/stdio/fopen.3,v 1.20 2007/01/09 00:28:06 imp Exp $
.\"
.Dd February 22, 2018
.Dt FOPEN 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm fopen ,
.Nm fdopen ,
.Nm freopen
.Nd stream open functions
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In stdio.h
.Ft FILE *
.Fn fopen "const char * restrict path" "const char * restrict mode"
.Ft FILE *
.Fn fdopen "int fildes" "const char *mode"
.Ft FILE *
.Fn freopen "const char * restrict path" "const char * restrict mode" "FILE * restrict stream"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn fopen
function
opens the file whose name is the string pointed to by
.Fa path
and associates a stream with it.
.Pp
The argument
.Fa mode
points to a string beginning with one of the following
sequences (Additional characters may follow these sequences.):
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Dq Li r
Open file for reading.
The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file.
.It Dq Li w
Open file for writing.
Creates the file if it does not already exist,
truncates the file if it does.
.It Dq Li a
Open file for append.
Creates the file if it does not already exist.
Seeks to end of the file.
Subsequent writes to the file will always end up at the then current
end of file, irrespective of any intervening
.Xr fseek 3
or similar operation.
.El
.Pp
Additional flags may modify the primary mode as follows:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Dq Li +
The file will be opened for both reading and writing.
For example 'r+' or 'w+'.
.It Dq Li x
The open will fail if the file already exists (C11).
For example 'wx'.
.It Dq Li e
Close-on-exec.  The underlying descriptor will automatically be closed on
any exec() (glibc compatibility).
.It Dq Li b
Binary mode.  On UNIX systems file reading and writing is always in binary
mode so this flag has no effect.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fa mode
string can also include the letter ``b'' either as a third character or
as a character between the characters in any of the two-character strings
described above.
This is strictly for compatibility with
.St -isoC-2011
and has no effect; the ``b'' is ignored.
.Pp
Any created files will have mode
.Pf \\*q Dv S_IRUSR
\&|
.Dv S_IWUSR
\&|
.Dv S_IRGRP
\&|
.Dv S_IWGRP
\&|
.Dv S_IROTH
\&|
.Dv S_IWOTH Ns \\*q
.Pq Li 0666 ,
as modified by the process'
umask value (see
.Xr umask 2 ) .
.Pp
Reads and writes may be intermixed on read/write streams in any order,
and do not require an intermediate seek as in previous versions of
.Em stdio .
This is not portable to other systems, however;
.Tn ANSI C
requires that
a file positioning function intervene between output and input, unless
an input operation encounters end-of-file.
.Pp
The
.Fn fdopen
function associates a stream with the existing file descriptor,
.Fa fildes .
The mode
of the stream must be compatible with the mode of the file descriptor.
When the stream is closed via
.Xr fclose 3 ,
.Fa fildes
is closed also.
.Pp
The
.Fn freopen
function
opens the file whose name is the string pointed to by
.Fa path
and associates the stream pointed to by
.Fa stream
with it.
The original stream (if it exists) is closed.
The
.Fa mode
argument is used just as in the
.Fn fopen
function.
.Pp
If the
.Fa path
argument is
.Dv NULL ,
.Fn freopen
attempts to re-open the file associated with
.Fa stream
with a new mode.
The new mode must be compatible with the mode that the stream was originally
opened with:
.Bl -bullet -offset indent
.It
Streams originally opened with mode
.Dq Li r
can only be reopened with that same mode.
.It
Streams originally opened with mode
.Dq Li a
can be reopened with the same mode, or mode
.Dq Li w .
.It
Streams originally opened with mode
.Dq Li w
can be reopened with the same mode, or mode
.Dq Li a .
.It
Streams originally opened with mode
.Dq Li r+ ,
.Dq Li w+ ,
or
.Dq Li a+
can be reopened with any mode.
.El
.Pp
The primary use of the
.Fn freopen
function
is to change the file associated with a
standard text stream
.Dv ( stderr , stdin ,
or
.Dv stdout ) .
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion
.Fn fopen ,
.Fn fdopen
and
.Fn freopen
return a
.Tn FILE
pointer.
Otherwise,
.Dv NULL
is returned and the global variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate the error.
.Sh ERRORS
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The
.Fa mode
argument
to
.Fn fopen ,
.Fn fdopen ,
or
.Fn freopen
was invalid.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fn fopen ,
.Fn fdopen
and
.Fn freopen
functions
may also fail and set
.Va errno
for any of the errors specified for the routine
.Xr malloc 3 .
.Pp
The
.Fn fopen
function
may also fail and set
.Va errno
for any of the errors specified for the routine
.Xr open 2 .
.Pp
The
.Fn fdopen
function
may also fail and set
.Va errno
for any of the errors specified for the routine
.Xr fcntl 2 .
.Pp
The
.Fn freopen
function
may also fail and set
.Va errno
for any of the errors specified for the routines
.Xr open 2 ,
.Xr fclose 3
and
.Xr fflush 3 .
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr open 2 ,
.Xr fclose 3 ,
.Xr fileno 3 ,
.Xr fseek 3 ,
.Xr funopen 3
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn fopen
and
.Fn freopen
functions
conform to
.St -isoC-2011 .
The
.Fn fdopen
function
conforms to
.St -p1003.1-88 .