xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/sys/ioctl.2 (revision 25a2db75)
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32.\"     @(#)ioctl.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
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34.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/ioctl.2,v 1.7.2.7 2001/12/14 18:34:01 ru Exp $
35.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/sys/ioctl.2,v 1.4 2008/11/10 23:47:31 swildner Exp $
36.\"
37.Dd December 11, 1993
38.Dt IOCTL 2
39.Os
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm ioctl
42.Nd control device
43.Sh LIBRARY
44.Lb libc
45.Sh SYNOPSIS
46.In sys/ioctl.h
47.Ft int
48.Fn ioctl "int d" "unsigned long request" ...
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Fn ioctl
52system call manipulates the underlying device parameters of special files.
53In particular, many operating
54characteristics of character special files (e.g.\& terminals)
55may be controlled with
56.Fn ioctl
57requests.
58The argument
59.Fa d
60must be an open file descriptor.
61.Pp
62The third argument to
63.Fn ioctl
64is traditionally named
65.Ar "char *argp" .
66Most uses of
67.Fn ioctl
68however, require the third argument to be a
69.Vt caddr_t
70or an
71.Vt int .
72.Pp
73An
74.Fn ioctl
75.Fa request
76has encoded in it whether the argument is an
77.Dq in
78argument or
79.Dq out
80argument, and the size of the argument
81.Fa argp
82in bytes.
83Macros and defines used in specifying an ioctl
84.Fa request
85are located in the file
86.In sys/ioctl.h .
87.Sh RETURN VALUES
88If an error has occurred, a value of -1 is returned and
89.Va errno
90is set to indicate the error.
91.Sh ERRORS
92.Fn Ioctl
93will fail if:
94.Bl -tag -width Er
95.It Bq Er EBADF
96.Fa d
97is not a valid descriptor.
98.It Bq Er ENOTTY
99.Fa d
100is not associated with a character
101special device.
102.It Bq Er ENOTTY
103The specified request does not apply to the kind
104of object that the descriptor
105.Fa d
106references.
107.It Bq Er EINVAL
108.Fa request
109or
110.Fa argp
111is not valid.
112.It Bq Er EFAULT
113.Fa argp
114points outside the process's allocated address space.
115.El
116.Sh SEE ALSO
117.Xr execve 2 ,
118.Xr fcntl 2 ,
119.Xr intro 4 ,
120.Xr tty 4 ,
121.Xr ioctl 9
122.Sh HISTORY
123An
124.Fn ioctl
125function call appeared in
126.At v7 .
127