xref: /netbsd/lib/libc/stdio/stdio.3 (revision c4a72b64)
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34.\"     @(#)stdio.3	8.7 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
35.\"
36.Dd April 19, 1994
37.Dt STDIO 3
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm stdio
41.Nd standard input/output library functions
42.Sh LIBRARY
43.Lb libc
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.Fd #include \*[Lt]stdio.h\*[Gt]
46.Fd FILE *stdin;
47.Fd FILE *stdout;
48.Fd FILE *stderr;
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The standard
51.Tn I/O
52library provides a simple and efficient buffered stream
53.Tn I/O
54interface.
55Input and output is mapped into logical data streams
56and the physical
57.Tn I/O
58characteristics are concealed.
59The functions and macros are listed below;
60more information is available from the individual man pages.
61.Pp
62A stream is associated with an external file (which may be a physical
63device) by
64.Em opening
65a file, which may involve creating a new file.
66Creating an existing file causes its former contents to be discarded.
67If a file can support positioning requests (such as a disk file, as opposed
68to a terminal) then a
69.Em file position indicator
70associated with the stream is positioned at the start of the file (byte
71zero), unless the file is opened with append mode.
72If append mode
73is used, the position indicator will be placed the end-of-file.
74The position indicator is maintained by subsequent reads, writes
75and positioning requests.
76All input occurs as if the characters
77were read by successive calls to the
78.Xr fgetc 3
79function; all output takes place as if all characters were
80read by successive calls to the
81.Xr fputc 3
82function.
83.Pp
84A file is disassociated from a stream by
85.Em closing
86the file.
87Output streams are flushed (any unwritten buffer contents are transferred
88to the host environment) before the stream is disassociated from the file.
89The value of a pointer to a
90.Dv FILE
91object is indeterminate after a file is closed (garbage).
92.Pp
93A file may be subsequently reopened, by the same or another program
94execution, and its contents reclaimed or modified (if it can be repositioned
95at the start).
96If the main function returns to its original caller, or the
97.Xr exit 3
98function is called, all open files are closed (hence all output
99streams are flushed) before program termination.
100Other methods of program termination, such as
101.Xr abort 3
102do not bother about closing files properly.
103.Pp
104This implementation needs and makes
105no distinction between
106.Dq text
107and
108.Dq binary
109streams.
110In effect, all streams are binary.
111No translation is performed and no extra padding appears on any stream.
112.Pp
113At program startup, three streams are predefined and need not be
114opened explicitly:
115.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
116.It
117.Em standard input
118(for reading conventional input),
119.It
120.Em standard output
121(for writing conventional output), and
122.It
123.Em standard error
124(for writing diagnostic output).
125.El
126These streams are abbreviated
127.Em stdin , stdout
128and
129.Em stderr .
130Initially, the standard error stream
131is unbuffered; the standard input and output streams are
132fully buffered if and only if the streams do not refer to
133an interactive or
134.Dq terminal
135device, as determined by the
136.Xr isatty 3
137function.
138In fact,
139.Em all
140freshly-opened streams that refer to terminal devices
141default to line buffering, and
142pending output to such streams is written automatically
143whenever an such an input stream is read.
144Note that this applies only to
145.Dq "true reads" ;
146if the read request can be satisfied by existing buffered data,
147no automatic flush will occur.
148In these cases,
149or when a large amount of computation is done after printing
150part of a line on an output terminal, it is necessary to
151.Xr fflush 3
152the standard output before going off and computing so that the output
153will appear.
154Alternatively, these defaults may be modified via the
155.Xr setvbuf 3
156function.
157.Pp
158The
159.Nm
160library is a part of the library
161.Pa libc.a
162and routines are automatically loaded as needed by compilers such
163as
164.Xr cc 1 .
165The
166.Tn SYNOPSIS
167sections of the following manual pages indicate which include files
168are to be used, what the compiler declaration for the function
169looks like and which external variables are of interest.
170.Pp
171The following are defined as macros; these names may not be re-used
172without first removing their current definitions with
173.Dv #undef :
174.Dv BUFSIZ ,
175.Dv EOF ,
176.Dv FILENAME_MAX ,
177.Dv FOPEN_MAX ,
178.Dv L_cuserid ,
179.Dv L_ctermid ,
180.Dv L_tmpnam ,
181.Dv NULL ,
182.Dv SEEK_END ,
183.Dv SEEK_SET ,
184.Dv SEE_CUR ,
185.Dv TMP_MAX ,
186.Fn clearerr ,
187.Fn feof ,
188.Fn ferror ,
189.Fn fileno ,
190.Fn freopen ,
191.Fn fwopen ,
192.Fn getc ,
193.Fn getchar ,
194.Fn putc ,
195.Fn putchar ,
196.Dv stderr ,
197.Dv stdin ,
198.Dv stdout .
199Function versions of the macro functions
200.Fn feof ,
201.Fn ferror ,
202.Fn clearerr ,
203.Fn fileno ,
204.Fn getc ,
205.Fn getchar ,
206.Fn putc ,
207and
208.Fn putchar
209exist and will be used if the macros definitions are explicitly removed.
210.Sh SEE ALSO
211.Xr close 2 ,
212.Xr open 2 ,
213.Xr read 2 ,
214.Xr write 2
215.Sh STANDARDS
216The
217.Nm
218library conforms to
219.St -ansiC .
220.Sh LIST OF FUNCTIONS
221.Bl -column "Description"
222.Sy Function	Description
223clearerr	check and reset stream status
224fclose	close a stream
225fdopen	stream open functions
226feof	check and reset stream status
227ferror	check and reset stream status
228fflush	flush a stream
229fgetc	get next character or word from input stream
230fgetln	get a line from a stream
231fgetpos	reposition a stream
232fgets	get a line from a stream
233fgetwc	get next wide character from input stream
234fileno	check and reset stream status
235fopen	stream open functions
236fprintf	formatted output conversion
237fpurge	flush a stream
238fputc	output a character or word to a stream
239fputs	output a line to a stream
240fputwc	output a wide character to a stream
241fread	binary stream input/output
242freopen	stream open functions
243fropen	open a stream
244fscanf	input format conversion
245fseek	reposition a stream
246fsetpos	reposition a stream
247ftell	reposition a stream
248funopen	open a stream
249fwide	set/get orientation of a stream
250fwopen	open a stream
251fwrite	binary stream input/output
252getc	get next character or word from input stream
253getchar	get next character or word from input stream
254gets	get a line from a stream
255getw	get next character or word from input stream
256getwc	get next wide character from input stream
257getwchar	get next wide character from input stream
258mkstemp	create unique temporary file
259mktemp	create unique temporary file
260perror	system error messages
261printf	formatted output conversion
262putc	output a character or word to a stream
263putchar	output a character or word to a stream
264puts	output a line to a stream
265putw	output a character or word to a stream
266putwc	output a wide character to a stream
267putwchar	output a wide character to a stream
268remove	remove directory entry
269rewind	reposition a stream
270scanf	input format conversion
271setbuf	stream buffering operations
272setbuffer	stream buffering operations
273setlinebuf	stream buffering operations
274setvbuf	stream buffering operations
275snprintf	formatted output conversion
276sprintf	formatted output conversion
277sscanf	input format conversion
278strerror	system error messages
279sys_errlist	system error messages
280sys_nerr	system error messages
281tempnam	temporary file routines
282tmpfile	temporary file routines
283tmpnam	temporary file routines
284ungetc	un-get character from input stream
285ungetwc	un-get wide character from input stream
286vfprintf	formatted output conversion
287vfscanf	input format conversion
288vprintf	formatted output conversion
289vscanf	input format conversion
290vsnprintf	formatted output conversion
291vsprintf	formatted output conversion
292vsscanf	input format conversion
293.El
294.Sh BUGS
295The standard buffered functions do not interact well with certain other
296library and system functions, especially
297.Xr vfork 2
298and
299.Xr abort 3 .
300