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PATHCONF(2) System Calls Manual PATHCONF(2) NAME pathconf, lpathconf, fpathconf -- get configurable pathname variables LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <unistd.h> long pathconf(const char *path, int name); long lpathconf(const char *path, int name); long fpathconf(int fd, int name); DESCRIPTION The pathconf(), lpathconf() and fpathconf() system calls provide a method for applications to determine the current value of a configurable system limit or option variable associated with a pathname or file descriptor. For pathconf() and lpathconf(), the path argument is the name of a file or directory. For fpathconf(), the fd argument is an open file descriptor. The name argument specifies the system variable to be queried. Symbolic constants for each name value are found in the include file <unistd.h>. The lpathconf() system call is like pathconf() except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link, in which case lpathconf() returns informa- tion about the link, while pathconf() returns information about the file the link references. The available values are as follows: _PC_LINK_MAX The maximum file link count. _PC_MAX_CANON The maximum number of bytes in terminal canonical input line. _PC_MAX_INPUT The minimum maximum number of bytes for which space is available in a terminal input queue. _PC_NAME_MAX The maximum number of bytes in a file name. _PC_PATH_MAX The maximum number of bytes in a pathname. _PC_PIPE_BUF The maximum number of bytes which will be written atomically to a pipe. _PC_CHOWN_RESTRICTED Return 1 if appropriate privilege is required for the chown(2) sys- tem call, otherwise 0. IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 ("POSIX.1") requires appropriate privilege in all cases, but this behavior was optional in prior editions of the standard. _PC_NO_TRUNC Return greater than zero if attempts to use pathname components longer than {NAME_MAX} will result in an [ENAMETOOLONG] error; oth- erwise, such components will be truncated to {NAME_MAX}. IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 ("POSIX.1") requires the error in all cases, but this behavior was optional in prior editions of the standard, and some non-POSIX-compliant file systems do not support this behavior. _PC_VDISABLE Returns the terminal character disabling value. _PC_ASYNC_IO Return 1 if asynchronous I/O is supported, otherwise 0. _PC_PRIO_IO Returns 1 if prioritised I/O is supported for this file, otherwise 0. _PC_SYNC_IO Returns 1 if synchronised I/O is supported for this file, otherwise 0. _PC_ALLOC_SIZE_MIN Minimum number of bytes of storage allocated for any portion of a file. _PC_FILESIZEBITS Number of bits needed to represent the maximum file size. _PC_REC_INCR_XFER_SIZE Recommended increment for file transfer sizes between _PC_REC_MIN_XFER_SIZE and _PC_REC_MAX_XFER_SIZE. _PC_REC_MAX_XFER_SIZE Maximum recommended file transfer size. _PC_REC_MIN_XFER_SIZE Minimum recommended file transfer size. _PC_REC_XFER_ALIGN Recommended file transfer buffer alignment. _PC_SYMLINK_MAX Maximum number of bytes in a symbolic link. _PC_ACL_EXTENDED Returns 1 if an Access Control List (ACL) can be set on the speci- fied file, otherwise 0. _PC_ACL_NFS4 Returns 1 if an NFSv4 ACLs can be set on the specified file, other- wise 0. _PC_ACL_PATH_MAX Maximum number of ACL entries per file. _PC_CAP_PRESENT Returns 1 if a capability state can be set on the specified file, otherwise 0. _PC_INF_PRESENT Returns 1 if an information label can be set on the specified file, otherwise 0. _PC_MAC_PRESENT Returns 1 if a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) label can be set on the specified file, otherwise 0. _PC_MIN_HOLE_SIZE If a file system supports the reporting of holes (see lseek(2)), pathconf() and fpathconf() return a positive number that represents the minimum hole size returned in bytes. The offsets of holes re- turned will be aligned to this same value. A special value of 1 is returned if the file system does not specify the minimum hole size but still reports holes. _PC_DEALLOC_PRESENT Return 1 if a file system supports hole-punching (see fspacectl(2)), otherwise 0. _PC_NAMEDATTR_ENABLED Return 1 if named attributes are enabled for the file system, oth- erwise 0. _PC_HAS_NAMEDATTR Return 1 if one or more named attributes exist for the file, other- wise 0. _PC_HAS_HIDDENSYSTEM Return 1 if all of the UF_ARCHIVE, UF_HIDDEN and UF_SYSTEM flags can be set by chflags(2), otherwise 0. _PC_CLONE_BLKSIZE Returns the block size required for block cloning via copy_file_range(2) for a file system if block cloning is supported, otherwise 0. _PC_CASE_INSENSITIVE Return 1 if the file system performs case insensitive lookups, oth- erwise 0. RETURN VALUES If the call to pathconf() or fpathconf() is not successful, -1 is returned and errno is set appropriately. Otherwise, if the variable is associated with functionality that does not have a limit in the system, -1 is returned and errno is not modified. Otherwise, the current variable value is re- turned. ERRORS If any of the following conditions occur, the pathconf() and fpathconf() system calls shall return -1 and set errno to the corresponding value. [EINVAL] The value of the name argument is invalid. [EINVAL] The implementation does not support an association of the variable name with the associated file. The pathconf() system call will fail if: [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters (but see _PC_NO_TRUNC above), or an entire path name ex- ceeded {PATH_MAX} characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. [EINTEGRITY] Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system. The fpathconf() system call will fail if: [EBADF] The fd argument is not a valid open file descriptor. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. [EINTEGRITY] Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system. SEE ALSO chflags(2), copy_file_range(2), lseek(2), sysctl(3) HISTORY The pathconf() and fpathconf() system calls first appeared in 4.4BSD. The lpathconf() system call first appeared in FreeBSD 8.0. FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly October 31, 2025 PATHCONF(2)
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY
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