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DUP(2)			    BSD	System Calls Manual			DUP(2)

NAME
     dup, dup2 -- duplicate an existing	file descriptor

LIBRARY
     Standard C	Library	(libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     dup(int oldd);

     int
     dup2(int oldd, int	newd);

DESCRIPTION
     The dup() system call duplicates an existing object descriptor and	re-
     turns its value to	the calling process (newd = dup(oldd)).	 The argument
     oldd is a small non-negative integer index	in the per-process descriptor
     table.  The value must be less than the size of the table,	which is re-
     turned by getdtablesize(2).  The new descriptor returned by the call is
     the lowest	numbered descriptor currently not in use by the	process.

     The object	referenced by the descriptor does not distinguish between oldd
     and newd in any way.  Thus	if newd	and oldd are duplicate references to
     an	open file, read(2), write(2) and lseek(2) calls	all move a single
     pointer into the file, and	append mode, non-blocking I/O and asynchronous
     I/O options are shared between the	references.  If	a separate pointer
     into the file is desired, a different object reference to the file	must
     be	obtained by issuing an additional open(2) system call.	The close-on-
     exec flag on the new file descriptor is unset.

     In	dup2(),	the value of the new descriptor	newd is	specified.  If this
     descriptor	is already in use and oldd != newd, the	descriptor is first
     deallocated as if the close(2) system call	had been used.	If oldd	is not
     a valid descriptor, then newd is not closed.  If oldd == newd and oldd is
     a valid descriptor, then dup2() is	successful, and	does nothing.

RETURN VALUES
     The value -1 is returned if an error occurs in either call.  The external
     variable errno indicates the cause	of the error.

ERRORS
     The dup() and dup2() system calls fail if:

     [EBADF]		The oldd or newd argument is not a valid active	de-
			scriptor

     [EMFILE]		Too many descriptors are active.

SEE ALSO
     accept(2),	close(2), fcntl(2), getdtablesize(2), open(2), pipe(2),
     socket(2),	socketpair(2)

STANDARDS
     The dup() and dup2() system calls are expected to conform to ISO/IEC
     9945-1:1990 ("POSIX.1").

HISTORY
     The dup() and dup2() functions appeared in	Version	7 AT&T UNIX.

BSD				 June 4, 1993				   BSD

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS | HISTORY

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