xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/stdio/fseek.3 (revision 40a8ac8f62b535d30349faf28cf47106b7041b83)
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32.\"     @(#)fseek.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd March 19, 2004
36.Dt FSEEK 3
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm fgetpos ,
40.Nm fseek ,
41.Nm fseeko ,
42.Nm fsetpos ,
43.Nm ftell ,
44.Nm ftello ,
45.Nm rewind
46.Nd reposition a stream
47.Sh LIBRARY
48.Lb libc
49.Sh SYNOPSIS
50.In stdio.h
51.Ft int
52.Fn fseek "FILE *stream" "long offset" "int whence"
53.Ft long
54.Fn ftell "FILE *stream"
55.Ft void
56.Fn rewind "FILE *stream"
57.Ft int
58.Fn fgetpos "FILE * restrict stream" "fpos_t * restrict pos"
59.Ft int
60.Fn fsetpos "FILE *stream" "const fpos_t *pos"
61.In sys/types.h
62.Ft int
63.Fn fseeko "FILE *stream" "off_t offset" "int whence"
64.Ft off_t
65.Fn ftello "FILE *stream"
66.Sh DESCRIPTION
67The
68.Fn fseek
69function sets the file position indicator for the stream pointed
70to by
71.Fa stream .
72The new position, measured in bytes, is obtained by adding
73.Fa offset
74bytes to the position specified by
75.Fa whence .
76If
77.Fa whence
78is set to
79.Dv SEEK_SET ,
80.Dv SEEK_CUR ,
81or
82.Dv SEEK_END ,
83the offset is relative to the
84start of the file, the current position indicator, or end-of-file,
85respectively.
86A successful call to the
87.Fn fseek
88function clears the end-of-file indicator for the stream and undoes
89any effects of the
90.Xr ungetc 3
91and
92.Xr ungetwc 3
93functions on the same stream.
94.Pp
95The
96.Fn ftell
97function
98obtains the current value of the file position indicator for the
99stream pointed to by
100.Fa stream .
101.Pp
102The
103.Fn rewind
104function sets the file position indicator for the stream pointed
105to by
106.Fa stream
107to the beginning of the file.
108It is equivalent to:
109.Pp
110.Dl (void)fseek(stream, 0L, SEEK_SET)
111.Pp
112except that the error indicator for the stream is also cleared
113(see
114.Xr clearerr 3 ) .
115.Pp
116Since
117.Fn rewind
118does not return a value,
119an application wishing to detect errors should clear
120.Va errno ,
121then call
122.Fn rewind ,
123and if
124.Va errno
125is non-zero, assume an error has occurred.
126.Pp
127The
128.Fn fseeko
129function is identical to
130.Fn fseek ,
131except it takes an
132.Fa off_t
133argument
134instead of a
135.Fa long .
136Likewise, the
137.Fn ftello
138function is identical to
139.Fn ftell ,
140except it returns an
141.Fa off_t .
142.Pp
143The
144.Fn fgetpos
145and
146.Fn fsetpos
147functions
148are alternate interfaces for retrieving and setting the current position in
149the file, similar to
150.Fn ftell
151and
152.Fn fseek ,
153except that the current position is stored in an opaque object of
154type
155.Vt fpos_t
156pointed to by
157.Fa pos .
158These functions provide a portable way to seek to offsets larger than
159those that can be represented by a
160.Vt long int .
161They may also store additional state information in the
162.Vt fpos_t
163object to facilitate seeking within files containing multibyte
164characters with state-dependent encodings.
165Although
166.Vt fpos_t
167has traditionally been an integral type,
168applications cannot assume that it is;
169in particular, they must not perform arithmetic on objects
170of this type.
171.Pp
172If the stream is a wide character stream (see
173.Xr fwide 3 ) ,
174the position specified by the combination of
175.Fa offset
176and
177.Fa whence
178must contain the first byte of a multibyte sequence.
179.Sh RETURN VALUES
180The
181.Fn rewind
182function
183returns no value.
184.Pp
185.Rv -std fgetpos fseek fseeko fsetpos
186.Pp
187Upon successful completion,
188.Fn ftell
189and
190.Fn ftello
191return the current offset.
192Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
193.Va errno
194is set to indicate the error.
195.Sh ERRORS
196.Bl -tag -width Er
197.It Bq Er EBADF
198The
199.Fa stream
200argument
201is not a seekable stream.
202.It Bq Er EINVAL
203The
204.Fa whence
205argument is invalid or
206the resulting file-position
207indicator would be set to a negative value.
208.It Bq Er EOVERFLOW
209The resulting file offset would be a value which
210cannot be represented correctly in an object of type
211.Fa off_t
212for
213.Fn fseeko
214and
215.Fn ftello
216or
217.Fa long
218for
219.Fn fseek
220and
221.Fn ftell .
222.It Bq Er ESPIPE
223The file descriptor underlying stream is associated with a pipe or FIFO
224or file-position indicator value is unspecified
225(see
226.Xr ungetc 3 ) .
227.El
228.Pp
229The functions
230.Fn fgetpos ,
231.Fn fseek ,
232.Fn fseeko ,
233.Fn fsetpos ,
234.Fn ftell ,
235.Fn ftello ,
236and
237.Fn rewind
238may also fail and set
239.Va errno
240for any of the errors specified for the routines
241.Xr fflush 3 ,
242.Xr fstat 2 ,
243.Xr lseek 2 ,
244and
245.Xr malloc 3 .
246.Sh SEE ALSO
247.Xr lseek 2 ,
248.Xr clearerr 3 ,
249.Xr fwide 3 ,
250.Xr ungetc 3 ,
251.Xr ungetwc 3
252.Sh STANDARDS
253The
254.Fn fgetpos ,
255.Fn fsetpos ,
256.Fn fseek ,
257.Fn ftell ,
258and
259.Fn rewind
260functions
261conform to
262.St -isoC .
263.Pp
264The
265.Fn fseeko
266and
267.Fn ftello
268functions conform to
269.St -p1003.1-2001 .
270