Content-type: text/html Man page of fopen

fopen

Section: C Library Functions (3)
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NAME

fopen, freopen, fdopen - Open a stream  

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc.so, libc.a)  

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdio.h>

FILE *fopen(
        const char *path,
        const char *mode);

FILE *fdopen(        int filedes,
       const char *mode);

FILE *freopen(        const char *path,
       const char *mode,
       FILE *stream);
 

STANDARDS

Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

fdopen(), fopen(), freopen(): ISO C, XPG4, XPG4-UNIX

Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.  

PARAMETERS

Points to a character string that contains the name of the file to be opened. If the final component of the path parameter specifies a symbolic link, the link is traversed and pathname resolution continues. Points to a character string that controls whether the file is opened for reading (r), writing (w), or appending (a) and whether the file is opened for updating (+). The mode can also include a b parameter, but this is ignored (see DESCRIPTION). Specifies the input stream. Specifies a valid open file descriptor.  

DESCRIPTION

The fopen() function opens the file named by the path parameter and associates a stream with it, returning a pointer to the FILE structure of this stream.

The mode parameter controls the access allowed to the stream. The parameter can have one of the following values. In this list of values, the b character indicates a binary file. UNIX systems do not distinguish between binary and text files in the context of opening a stream, and the b character is therefore ignored. However, the b character is included in X/Open standards for alignment with ISO C syntax that can apply to other kinds of operating systems. Opens the file for reading. Creates a new file for writing, or opens and truncates a file to zero length. (The file is not truncated under the fdopen() function.) Appends (opens a file for writing at the end of the file, or creates a file for writing). Opens a file for update (reading and writing). Truncates to zero length or creates a file for update. (The file is not truncated under the fdopen() function.) Appends (opens a file for update, writing at the end of the file, or creates a file for writing).

When you open a file for update, you can perform both input and output operations on the resulting stream. However, an output operation cannot be directly followed by an input operation without an intervening call to the fflush() function or a file-positioning operation (fseek(), fsetpos(), or rewind() function). Also, an input operation cannot be directly followed by an output operation without an intervening flush or file positioning operation, unless the input operation encounters the end of the file.

When you open a file for append (that is, when the mode parameter is a or a+), it is impossible to overwrite information already in the file. You can use the fseek() function to reposition the file pointer to any position in the file, but when output is written to the file, the current file pointer is ignored. All output is written at the end of the file and the file pointer is repositioned to the end of the output.

[DIGITAL]  If two separate processes open the same file for append, each process can write freely to the file without destroying the output being written by the other. The output from the two processes is intermixed in the order in which it is written to the file. Note that if the data is buffered, it is not actually written until it is flushed.

When opened, a stream is fully buffered if and only if it can be determined that it does not refer to an interactive device. The error and End-of-File indicators for the stream are cleared.

If the mode parameter is w, a, w+, or a+ and the file did not previously exist, upon successful completion the fopen() function marks the st_atime, st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the file and the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the parent directory for update. If the mode parameter is w or w+ and the file did previously exist, upon successful completion the fopen() function marks the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the file for update.

The freopen() function substitutes the named file in place of the open stream. The original stream is closed regardless of whether the open() function succeeds with the named file. The freopen() function returns a pointer to the FILE structure associated with the stream parameter. The freopen() function is typically used to attach the preopened streams associated with stdin, stdout, and stderr to other files. The function uses the mode argument in the same way as described for fopen().

The fdopen() function associates a stream with a file descriptor obtained from an open(), dup(), creat(), or pipe() function. These functions open files, but do not return pointers to FILE structures. Many of the standard I/O package functions require pointers to FILE structures. Note that the mode of the stream specified must agree with the mode of the open file. The meaning of mode values is the same as described for fopen(), except that for fdopen(), the values beginning with w do not cause truncation of the file.

The fdopen() function sets the file position indicator associated with the new stream to the position indicated by the file offset associated with the file descriptor. The function also clears the error and End-of-File indicators for the stream.  

Stream Orientation

[ISO C]  The current version of the ISO C standard specifies that streams have an orientation: unbounded immediately after the stream is opened, byte oriented if operated on by a byte-oriented I/O function, and wide-character oriented if operated on by a wide-character I/O function. Furthermore, the standard defines the fwide() function for explicitly querying stream orientation and, if preceded by a call to freopen(), for changing stream orientation without actually operating on the stream (see fwide(3)). The reasons for these additions to the standard are as follows. Both I/O functions that are byte oriented and those that are wide-character oriented can refer to the same FILE object. For wide-character functions, the FILE object is assumed to include an mb_state object to keep track of conversion-state information that currently applies to the stream. Wide-character functions are designed with the assumption that they always begin execution with the stream positioned at the boundary between two multibyte characters. The conversion-state information in the mb_state object is needed for correct positioning when an application executes in a locale that supports shift-state encoding. While wide-character functions can maintain consistency between the conversion state and the stream, byte-oriented functions cannot. Therefore, a wide-character function cannot be assured of correct boundary positioning in an open stream if that same stream is also operated on by a byte-oriented function. The additions to the ISO C standard allow application developers a way to make sure that a stream opened by another function has the correct orientation (either unbounded or wide-character) before its associated FILE object is referred to by a wide-character function.  

RESTRICTIONS

Currently, Tru64 UNIX systems do not provide locales that support shift-state encoding. Therefore, the ISO C rules and definitions related to shift-state encoding and stream orientation have no practical use when applications run on Tru64 UNIX systems. However, these rules and definitions are included for your convenience in using Tru64 UNIX to develop applications that run on multiple platforms, some of which may support locales with shift-state encoding.  

RETURN VALUES

On successful completion, the fopen(), fdopen(), and freopen() functions return a pointer to the FILE object controlling the stream.

If these functions fail, they return a null pointer and set errno to indicate the error.  

ERRORS

The fopen(), fdopen(), and freopen() functions set errno to the specified values for the following conditions:

Search permission is denied on a component of the pathname prefix; or the file exists and the permissions specified by the mode parameter are denied; or the file does not exist and write permission is denied for the parent directory of the file to be created (fopen() or freopen()). The filedes parameter is not a valid file descriptor (fdopen() only). The function (fopen() or freopen()) was interrupted by a signal that was caught. The mode parameter is not a valid mode. The named file is a directory and mode requires write access (fopen() or freopen()). [XPG4-UNIX]  Too many links were encountered in translating path. OPEN_MAX file descriptors are currently open in the calling process (freopen()).

[DIGITAL]  Either the OPEN_MAX value or the per-process soft descriptor limit is checked.
The FOPEN_MAX or STREAM_MAX streams are currently open in the calling process (fopen() or fdopen()). The length of the path string exceeds PATH_MAX or a pathname component is longer than NAME_MAX (fopen() or freopen()). Too many files are currently open in the system (fopen() or freopen()). The named file does not exist or the path parameter points to an empty string (fopen() or freopen()). There is insufficient space to allocate a buffer. The directory or file system that would contain the new file cannot be expanded (fopen() or freopen()). A component of the pathname prefix is not a directory (fopen() or freopen()). The named file is a character-special or block-special file and the device associated with this special file does not exist (fopen() or freopen()). [DIGITAL]  The named file is a socket bound to the file system (a UNIX domain socket) and cannot be opened. The named file resides on a read-only file system and mode requires write access (fopen() or freopen()). The file is being executed and the mode requires write access (fopen() or freopen()).
 

RELATED INFORMATION

Functions: open(2), fclose(3), fseek(3), fwide(3), setbuf(3), setlocale(3)

Standards: standards(5) delim off


 

Index

NAME
LIBRARY
SYNOPSIS
STANDARDS
PARAMETERS
DESCRIPTION
Stream Orientation
RESTRICTIONS
RETURN VALUES
ERRORS
RELATED INFORMATION

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 02:41:11 GMT, October 02, 2010