This section describes the functions for performing primitive input and output operations on file descriptors: read , write , and lseek . These functions are declared in the header file `unistd.h'.
size_t , but must be a signed type.
read function reads up to size bytes from the file with descriptor filedes, storing the results in the buffer. (This is not necessarily a character string and there is no terminating null character added.) The return value is the number of bytes actually read. This might be less than size; for example, if there aren't that many bytes left in the file or if there aren't that many bytes immediately available. The exact behavior depends on what kind of file it is. Note that reading less than size bytes is not an error.
A value of zero indicates end-of-file (except if the value of the size argument is also zero). This is not considered an error. If you keep calling read while at end-of-file, it will keep returning zero and doing nothing else.
If read returns at least one character, there is no way you can tell whether end-of-file was reached. But if you did reach the end, the next read will return zero.
In case of an error, read returns -1 . The following errno error conditions are defined for this function:
EAGAIN read waits for some input. But if the O_NONBLOCK flag is set for the file (see File Status Flags), read returns immediately without reading any data, and reports this error.
Compatibility Note: Most versions of BSD Unix use a different error code for this: EWOULDBLOCK . In the GNU library, EWOULDBLOCK is an alias for EAGAIN , so it doesn't matter which name you use.
On some systems, reading a large amount of data from a character special file can also fail with EAGAIN if the kernel cannot find enough physical memory to lock down the user's pages. This is limited to devices that transfer with direct memory access into the user's memory, which means it does not include terminals, since they always use separate buffers inside the kernel.
Any condition that could result in EAGAIN can instead result in a successful read which returns fewer bytes than requested. Calling read again immediately would result in EAGAIN .
EBADF
EINTR read was interrupted by a signal while it was waiting for input. See Interrupted Primitives.
EIO
EIO also occurs when a background process tries to read from the controlling terminal, and the normal action of stopping the process by sending it a SIGTTIN signal isn't working. This might happen if signal is being blocked or ignored, or because the process group is orphaned. See Job Control, for more information about job control, and Signal Handling, for information about signals.
The read function is the underlying primitive for all of the functions that read from streams, such as fgetc .
write function writes up to size bytes from buffer to the file with descriptor filedes. The data in buffer is not necessarily a character string and a null character is output like any other character. The return value is the number of bytes actually written. This is normally the same as size, but might be less (for example, if the physical media being written to fills up).
In the case of an error, write returns -1 . The following errno error conditions are defined for this function:
EAGAIN write blocks until the write operation is complete. But if the O_NONBLOCK flag is set for the file (see Control Operations), it returns immediately without writing any data, and reports this error. An example of a situation that might cause the process to block on output is writing to a terminal device that supports flow control, where output has been suspended by receipt of a STOP character.
Compatibility Note: Most versions of BSD Unix use a different error code for this: EWOULDBLOCK . In the GNU library, EWOULDBLOCK is an alias for EAGAIN , so it doesn't matter which name you use.
On some systems, writing a large amount of data from a character special file can also fail with EAGAIN if the kernel cannot find enough physical memory to lock down the user's pages. This is limited to devices that transfer with direct memory access into the user's memory, which means it does not include terminals, since they always use separate buffers inside the kernel.
EBADF
EFBIG
EINTR write operation was interrupted by a signal while it was blocked waiting for completion. See Interrupted Primitives.
EIO
ENOSPC
EPIPE SIGPIPE signal is also sent to the process; see Signal Handling.
Unless you have arranged to prevent EINTR failures, you should check errno after each failing call to write , and if the error was EINTR , you should simply repeat the call. See Interrupted Primitives. The easy way to do this is with the macro TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY , as follows:
nbytes = TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY (write (desc, buffer, count));
The write function is the underlying primitive for all of the functions that write to streams, such as fputc .