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DUP(2)			      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	 argu-
       ment  oldd is a small non-negative integer index	in the per-process de-
       scriptor	table.	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	refer-
       ences  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 sepa-
       rate  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	 noth-
       ing.

RETURN VALUES
       These calls return the new file descriptor if successful; otherwise the
       value -1	is returned and	the external variable errno is set to indicate
       the cause of the	error.

ERRORS
       The dup() system	call fails if:

       [EBADF]		  The oldd argument is not a valid active descriptor

       [EMFILE]		  Too many descriptors are active.

       The dup2() system call fails if:

       [EBADF]		  The  oldd  argument is not a valid active descriptor
			  or the newd argument is negative or exceeds the max-
			  imum allowable descriptor number

SEE ALSO
       accept(2),  close(2),  fcntl(2),	 getdtablesize(2),  open(2),  pipe(2),
       socket(2), socketpair(2), dup3(3)

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

HISTORY
       The dup() function appeared in Version 3	AT&T UNIX.  The	 dup2()	 func-
       tion appeared in	Version	7 AT&T UNIX.

FreeBSD	13.2		       December	1, 2017				DUP(2)

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

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