LSEEK(2) | System Calls Manual | LSEEK(2) |
lseek
— reposition
read/write file offset
#include
<unistd.h>
off_t
lseek
(int
fildes, off_t
offset, int
whence);
The
lseek
()
function repositions the offset of the file descriptor
fildes to the argument offset
according to the directive whence. The argument
fildes must be an open file descriptor.
lseek
() repositions the file pointer
fildes as follows:
SEEK_SET
, the
offset is set to offset bytes.SEEK_CUR
, the
offset is set to its current location plus offset
bytes.SEEK_END
, the
offset is set to the size of the file plus offset
bytes.The
lseek
()
function allows the file offset to be set beyond the end of the existing
end-of-file of the file. If data is later written at this point, subsequent
reads of the data in the gap return bytes of zeros (until data is actually
written into the gap).
Some devices are incapable of seeking. The value of the pointer associated with such a device is undefined.
Upon successful completion, lseek
()
returns the resulting offset location as measured in bytes from the
beginning of the file. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and
errno is set to indicate the error.
lseek
() will fail and the file pointer
will remain unchanged if:
The lseek
() function conforms to
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).
A seek
() system call first appeared in
Version 1 AT&T UNIX. In
Version 7 AT&T UNIX it was renamed to
lseek
() for “long seek” due to a
larger offset argument type.
This document's use of whence is incorrect English, but is maintained for historical reasons.
September 10, 2015 | OpenBSD-current |