illumos: manual page: lseek.2

LSEEK(2) System Calls LSEEK(2)

NAME

lseek - move read/write file pointer

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>

off_t lseek(int fildes, off_t offset, int whence);

DESCRIPTION

The lseek() function sets the file pointer associated with the open file
descriptor specified by fildes as follows:

o If whence is SEEK_SET, the pointer is set to offset bytes.

o If whence is SEEK_CUR, the pointer is set to its current
location plus offset.

o If whence is SEEK_END, the pointer is set to the size of the
file plus offset.

o If whence is SEEK_HOLE, the offset of the start of the next
hole greater than or equal to the supplied offset is returned.
The definition of a hole is provided near the end of the
DESCRIPTION.

o If whence is SEEK_DATA, the file pointer is set to the start
of the next non-hole file region greater than or equal to the
supplied offset.

The symbolic constants SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END, SEEK_HOLE, and
SEEK_DATA are defined in the header <unistd.h>.

Some devices are incapable of seeking. The value of the file pointer
associated with such a device is undefined.

The lseek() function allows the file pointer to be set beyond the
existing data in the file. If data are later written at this point,
subsequent reads in the gap between the previous end of data and the
newly written data will return bytes of value 0 until data are written
into the gap.

If fildes is a remote file descriptor and offset is negative, lseek()
returns the file pointer even if it is negative. The lseek() function
will not, by itself, extend the size of a file.

If fildes refers to a shared memory object, lseek() behaves as if fildes
referred to a regular file.

A "hole" is defined as a contiguous range of bytes in a file, all having
the value of zero, but not all zeros in a file are guaranteed to be
represented as holes returned with SEEK_HOLE. Filesystems are allowed to
expose ranges of zeros with SEEK_HOLE, but not required to. Applications
can use SEEK_HOLE to optimise their behavior for ranges of zeros, but
must not depend on it to find all such ranges in a file. The existence of
a hole at the end of every data region allows for easy programming and
implies that a virtual hole exists at the end of the file. Applications
should use fpathconf(_PC_MIN_HOLE_SIZE) or pathconf(_PC_MIN_HOLE_SIZE) to
determine if a filesystem supports SEEK_HOLE. See fpathconf(2).

For filesystems that do not supply information about holes, the file will
be represented as one entire data region.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, the resulting offset, as measured in bytes
from the beginning of the file, is returned. Otherwise, (off_t)-1 is
returned, the file offset remains unchanged, and errno is set to indicate
the error.

ERRORS

The lseek() function will fail if:

EBADF
The fildes argument is not an open file descriptor.

EINVAL
The whence argument is not SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END;
or the fildes argument is not a remote file descriptor and
the resulting file pointer would be negative.

ENXIO
For SEEK_DATA, there are no more data regions past the
supplied offset. For SEEK_HOLE, there are no more holes
past the supplied offset.

EOVERFLOW
The resulting file offset would be a value which cannot be
represented correctly in an object of type off_t for regular
files.

ESPIPE
The fildes argument is associated with a pipe, a FIFO, or a
socket.

USAGE

The lseek() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit file
offsets. See lf64(7).

In multithreaded applications, using lseek() in conjunction with a
read(2) or write(2) call on a file descriptor shared by more than one
thread is not an atomic operation. To ensure atomicity, use pread() or
pwrite().

ATTRIBUTES