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SETBUF(3) BSD Library Functions Manual SETBUF(3) NAME setbuf, setbuffer, setlinebuf, setvbuf -- stream buffering operations LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <stdio.h> void setbuf(FILE * restrict stream, char * restrict buf); void setbuffer(FILE *stream, char *buf, int size); int setlinebuf(FILE *stream); int setvbuf(FILE * restrict stream, char * restrict buf, int mode, size_t size); DESCRIPTION The three types of buffering available are unbuffered, block buffered, and line buffered. When an output stream is unbuffered, information ap- pears on the destination file or terminal as soon as written; when it is block buffered many characters are saved up and written as a block; when it is line buffered characters are saved up until a newline is output or input is read from any stream attached to a terminal device (typically stdin). The function fflush(3) may be used to force the block out early. (See fclose(3).) Normally all files are block buffered. When the first I/O operation oc- curs on a file, malloc(3) is called, and an optimally-sized buffer is ob- tained. If a stream refers to a terminal (as stdout normally does) it is line buffered. The standard error stream stderr is always unbuffered. The setvbuf() function may be used to alter the buffering behavior of a stream. The mode argument must be one of the following three macros: _IONBF unbuffered _IOLBF line buffered _IOFBF fully buffered The size argument may be given as zero to obtain deferred optimal-size buffer allocation as usual. If it is not zero, then except for un- buffered files, the buf argument should point to a buffer at least size bytes long; this buffer will be used instead of the current buffer. If buf is not NULL, it is the caller's responsibility to free(3) this buffer after closing the stream. (If the size argument is not zero but buf is NULL, a buffer of the given size will be allocated immediately, and re- leased on close. This is an extension to ANSI C; portable code should use a size of 0 with any NULL buffer.) The setvbuf() function may be used at any time, but may have peculiar side effects (such as discarding input or flushing output) if the stream is ``active''. Portable applications should call it only once on any given stream, and before any I/O is performed. The other three calls are, in effect, simply aliases for calls to setvbuf(). Except for the lack of a return value, the setbuf() function is exactly equivalent to the call setvbuf(stream, buf, buf ? _IOFBF : _IONBF, BUFSIZ); The setbuffer() function is the same, except that the size of the buffer is up to the caller, rather than being determined by the default BUFSIZ. The setlinebuf() function is exactly equivalent to the call: setvbuf(stream, (char *)NULL, _IOLBF, 0); RETURN VALUES The setvbuf() function returns 0 on success, or EOF if the request cannot be honored (note that the stream is still functional in this case). The setlinebuf() function returns what the equivalent setvbuf() would have returned. SEE ALSO fclose(3), fopen(3), fread(3), malloc(3), printf(3), puts(3) STANDARDS The setbuf() and setvbuf() functions conform to ISO/IEC 9899:1990 ("ISO C90"). BUGS The setbuffer() and setlinebuf() functions are not portable to versions of BSD before 4.2BSD. On 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD systems, setbuf() always uses a suboptimal buffer size and should be avoided. BSD June 4, 1993 BSD
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS | BUGS
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