xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/sys/ioctl.2 (revision 8a7bdfea)
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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 1.3 2006/05/26 19:39:37 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
52function 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.Nm
64is traditionally named
65.Ar "char *argp" .
66Most uses of
67.Nm
68in
69.Fx 3.0
70however, require the third argument to be a
71.Ar caddr_t
72or an
73.Ar int .
74.Pp
75An  ioctl
76.Fa request
77has encoded in it whether the argument is an
78.Dq in
79parameter
80or
81.Dq out
82parameter, and the size of the argument
83.Fa argp
84in bytes.
85Macros and defines used in specifying an ioctl
86.Fa request
87are located in the file
88.In sys/ioctl.h .
89.Sh RETURN VALUES
90If an error has occurred, a value of -1 is returned and
91.Va errno
92is set to indicate the error.
93.Sh ERRORS
94.Fn ioctl
95will fail if:
96.Bl -tag -width Er
97.It Bq Er EBADF
98.Fa d
99is not a valid descriptor.
100.It Bq Er ENOTTY
101.Fa d
102is not associated with a character
103special device.
104.It Bq Er ENOTTY
105The specified request does not apply to the kind
106of object that the descriptor
107.Fa d
108references.
109.It Bq Er EINVAL
110.Fa request
111or
112.Fa argp
113is not valid.
114.It Bq Er EFAULT
115.Fa argp
116points outside the process's allocated address space.
117.El
118.Sh SEE ALSO
119.Xr execve 2 ,
120.Xr fcntl 2 ,
121.Xr intro 4 ,
122.Xr tty 4
123.Sh HISTORY
124An
125.Fn ioctl
126function call appeared in
127.At v7 .
128