xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/stdio/fseek.3 (revision fd9a4a67d053a51349ba6eba5ea61a7cd2cf20af)
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32.\"     @(#)fseek.3	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
33.\"
34.Dd April 2, 2022
35.Dt FSEEK 3
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm fgetpos ,
39.Nm fseek ,
40.Nm fseeko ,
41.Nm fsetpos ,
42.Nm ftell ,
43.Nm ftello ,
44.Nm rewind
45.Nd reposition a stream
46.Sh LIBRARY
47.Lb libc
48.Sh SYNOPSIS
49.In stdio.h
50.Ft int
51.Fn fseek "FILE *stream" "long offset" "int whence"
52.Ft long
53.Fn ftell "FILE *stream"
54.Ft void
55.Fn rewind "FILE *stream"
56.Ft int
57.Fn fgetpos "FILE * restrict stream" "fpos_t * restrict pos"
58.Ft int
59.Fn fsetpos "FILE *stream" "const fpos_t *pos"
60.In sys/types.h
61.Ft int
62.Fn fseeko "FILE *stream" "off_t offset" "int whence"
63.Ft off_t
64.Fn ftello "FILE *stream"
65.Sh DESCRIPTION
66The
67.Fn fseek
68function sets the file position indicator for the stream pointed
69to by
70.Fa stream .
71The new position, measured in bytes, is obtained by adding
72.Fa offset
73bytes to the position specified by
74.Fa whence .
75If
76.Fa whence
77is set to
78.Dv SEEK_SET ,
79.Dv SEEK_CUR ,
80or
81.Dv SEEK_END ,
82the offset is relative to the
83start of the file, the current position indicator, or end-of-file,
84respectively.
85A successful call to the
86.Fn fseek
87function clears the end-of-file indicator for the stream and undoes
88any effects of the
89.Xr ungetc 3
90and
91.Xr ungetwc 3
92functions on the same stream.
93.Pp
94The
95.Fn ftell
96function
97obtains the current value of the file position indicator for the
98stream pointed to by
99.Fa stream .
100.Pp
101The
102.Fn rewind
103function sets the file position indicator for the stream pointed
104to by
105.Fa stream
106to the beginning of the file.
107It is equivalent to:
108.Pp
109.Dl (void)fseek(stream, 0L, SEEK_SET)
110.Pp
111except that the error indicator for the stream is also cleared
112(see
113.Xr clearerr 3 ) .
114.Pp
115Since
116.Fn rewind
117does not return a value,
118an application wishing to detect errors should clear
119.Va errno ,
120then call
121.Fn rewind ,
122and if
123.Va errno
124is non-zero, assume an error has occurred.
125.Pp
126The
127.Fn fseeko
128function is identical to
129.Fn fseek ,
130except it takes an
131.Fa off_t
132argument
133instead of a
134.Fa long .
135Likewise, the
136.Fn ftello
137function is identical to
138.Fn ftell ,
139except it returns an
140.Fa off_t .
141.Pp
142The
143.Fn fgetpos
144and
145.Fn fsetpos
146functions
147are alternate interfaces for retrieving and setting the current position in
148the file, similar to
149.Fn ftell
150and
151.Fn fseek ,
152except that the current position is stored in an opaque object of
153type
154.Vt fpos_t
155pointed to by
156.Fa pos .
157These functions provide a portable way to seek to offsets larger than
158those that can be represented by a
159.Vt long int .
160They may also store additional state information in the
161.Vt fpos_t
162object to facilitate seeking within files containing multibyte
163characters with state-dependent encodings.
164Although
165.Vt fpos_t
166has traditionally been an integral type,
167applications cannot assume that it is;
168in particular, they must not perform arithmetic on objects
169of this type.
170.Pp
171If the stream is a wide character stream (see
172.Xr fwide 3 ) ,
173the position specified by the combination of
174.Fa offset
175and
176.Fa whence
177must contain the first byte of a multibyte sequence.
178.Sh RETURN VALUES
179The
180.Fn rewind
181function
182returns no value.
183.Pp
184.Rv -std fgetpos fseek fseeko fsetpos
185.Pp
186Upon successful completion,
187.Fn ftell
188and
189.Fn ftello
190return the current offset.
191Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
192.Va errno
193is set to indicate the error.
194.Sh ERRORS
195.Bl -tag -width Er
196.It Bq Er EBADF
197The
198.Fa stream
199argument
200is not a seekable stream.
201.It Bq Er EINVAL
202The
203.Fa whence
204argument is invalid or
205the resulting file-position
206indicator would be set to a negative value.
207.It Bq Er EOVERFLOW
208The resulting file offset would be a value which
209cannot be represented correctly in an object of type
210.Fa off_t
211for
212.Fn fseeko
213and
214.Fn ftello
215or
216.Fa long
217for
218.Fn fseek
219and
220.Fn ftell .
221.It Bq Er ESPIPE
222The file descriptor underlying stream is associated with a pipe or FIFO
223or file-position indicator value is unspecified
224(see
225.Xr ungetc 3 ) .
226.El
227.Pp
228The functions
229.Fn fgetpos ,
230.Fn fseek ,
231.Fn fseeko ,
232.Fn fsetpos ,
233.Fn ftell ,
234.Fn ftello ,
235and
236.Fn rewind
237may also fail and set
238.Va errno
239for any of the errors specified for the routines
240.Xr fflush 3 ,
241.Xr fstat 2 ,
242.Xr lseek 2 ,
243and
244.Xr malloc 3 .
245.Sh SEE ALSO
246.Xr lseek 2 ,
247.Xr clearerr 3 ,
248.Xr fwide 3 ,
249.Xr ungetc 3 ,
250.Xr ungetwc 3
251.Sh STANDARDS
252The
253.Fn fgetpos ,
254.Fn fsetpos ,
255.Fn fseek ,
256.Fn ftell ,
257and
258.Fn rewind
259functions
260conform to
261.St -isoC .
262.Pp
263The
264.Fn fseeko
265and
266.Fn ftello
267functions conform to
268.St -p1003.1-2001 .
269.Sh HISTORY
270The functions
271.Fn fseek ,
272.Fn ftell ,
273and
274.Fn rewind
275first appeared in
276.At v7 .
277