close man page on Solaris

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   20652 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Solaris logo
[printable version]

close(2)			 System Calls			      close(2)

NAME
       close - close a file descriptor

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int close(int fildes);

DESCRIPTION
       The  close()  function  deallocates  the	 file  descriptor indicated by
       fildes. To deallocate means to make the file descriptor	available  for
       return  by subsequent calls to open(2) or other functions that allocate
       file descriptors. All outstanding record locks owned by the process  on
       the  file associated with the file descriptor will be removed (that is,
       unlocked).

       If close() is interrupted by a signal that is to	 be  caught,  it  will
       return  −1  with errno set to EINTR and the state of fildes is unspeci‐
       fied. If an I/O error occurred while reading from  or  writing  to  the
       file  system  during close(), it returns -1, sets errno to EIO, and the
       state of fildes is unspecified.

       When all file descriptors associated with a pipe or FIFO	 special  file
       are closed, any data remaining in the pipe or FIFO will be discarded.

       When all file descriptors associated with an open file description have
       been closed the open file description will be freed.

       If the link count of the file is 0, when all file  descriptors  associ‐
       ated  with  the file are closed, the space occupied by the file will be
       freed and the file will no longer be accessible.

       If a STREAMS-based (see intro(2)) fildes	 is  closed  and  the  calling
       process was previously registered to receive a SIGPOLL signal (see sig‐
       nal(3C)) for events  associated	with  that  STREAM  (see  I_SETSIG  in
       streamio(7I)),  the  calling  process  will  be unregistered for events
       associated with the STREAM.  The last close() for a STREAM  causes  the
       STREAM  associated  with	 fildes	 to  be	 dismantled. If O_NONBLOCK and
       O_NDELAY are not set and there have been	 no  signals  posted  for  the
       STREAM, and if there is data on the module's write queue, close() waits
       up to 15 seconds (for each module and driver) for any output  to	 drain
       before  dismantling  the	 STREAM.  The time delay can be changed via an
       I_SETCLTIME ioctl(2) request (see streamio(7I)). If the	O_NONBLOCK  or
       O_NDELAY flag is set, or if there are any pending signals, close() does
       not wait for output to drain, and dismantles the STREAM immediately.

       If fildes is associated with one end of a pipe, the last close() causes
       a  hangup  to  occur on the other end of the pipe.  In addition, if the
       other end of the pipe has been named  by	 fattach(3C),  then  the  last
       close()	forces	the  named  end to be detached by fdetach(3C).	If the
       named end has no open file descriptors  associated  with	 it  and  gets
       detached, the STREAM associated with that end is also dismantled.

       If fildes refers to the master side of a pseudo-terminal, a SIGHUP sig‐
       nal is sent to the session leader, if any, for which the slave side  of
       the  pseudo-terminal  is	 the  controlling  terminal. It is unspecified
       whether closing the master side	of  the	 pseudo-terminal  flushes  all
       queued input and output.

       If  fildes refers to the slave side of a STREAMS-based pseudo-terminal,
       a zero-length message may be sent to the master.

       When there is an	 outstanding  cancelable  asynchronous	I/O  operation
       against	fildes when close() is called, that I/O operation is canceled.
       An I/O operation that is not canceled completes as if the close() oper‐
       ation  had not yet occurred.  All operations that are not canceled will
       complete as if the close() blocked until the operations completed.

       If a shared memory object or a memory mapped file remains referenced at
       the last close (that is, a process has it mapped), then the entire con‐
       tents of the memory object will persist until the memory object becomes
       unreferenced.  If this is the last close of a shared memory object or a
       memory mapped file and the close results in the memory object  becoming
       unreferenced,  and the memory object has been unlinked, then the memory
       object will be removed.

       If fildes  refers  to  a	 socket,  close()  causes  the	socket	to  be
       destroyed.   If the socket is connection-mode, and the SO_LINGER option
       is set for the socket with non-zero linger time,	 and  the  socket  has
       untransmitted  data,  then  close()  will  block	 for up to the current
       linger interval until all data is transmitted.

RETURN VALUES
       Upon successful completion, 0 is returned. Otherwise,  −1  is  returned
       and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       The close() function will fail if:

       EBADF	       The fildes argument is not a valid file descriptor.

       EINTR	       The close() function was interrupted by a signal.

       ENOLINK	       The fildes argument is on a remote machine and the link
		       to that machine is no longer active.

       ENOSPC	       There was no free space remaining on  the  device  con‐
		       taining the file.

       The close() function may fail if:

       EIO	       An  I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
		       the file system.

EXAMPLES
       Example 1: Reassign a file descriptor.

       The following example closes the file descriptor associated with	 stan‐
       dard  output  for  the current process, re-assigns standard output to a
       new file descriptor, and closes the original file descriptor  to	 clean
       up.  This  example  assumes  that  the  file descriptor 0, which is the
       descriptor for standard input, is not closed.

       #include <unistd.h>
       ...
       int pfd;
       ...
       close(1);
       dup(pfd);
       close(pfd);
       ...

       Incidentally, this is exactly what could be achieved using:

       dup2(pfd, 1);
       close(pfd);

       Example 2: Close a file descriptor.

       In the following example, close() is used to close  a  file  descriptor
       after an unsuccessful attempt is made to associate that file descriptor
       with a stream.

       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>

       #define LOCKFILE "/etc/ptmp"
       ...
       int pfd;
       FILE *fpfd;
       ...
       if ((fpfd = fdopen (pfd, "w")) == NULL) {
	       close(pfd);
	       unlink(LOCKFILE);
	       exit(1);
       }
       ...

USAGE
       An application that used the stdio function fopen(3C) to	 open  a  file
       should use the corresponding fclose(3C) function rather than close().

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability	     │Standard			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │MT-Level		     │Async-Signal-Safe		   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       intro(2),   creat(2),  dup(2),  exec(2),	 fcntl(2),  ioctl(2),  open(2)
       pipe(2), fattach(3C), fclose(3C), fdetach(3C),  fopen(3C),  signal(3C),
       signal.h(3HEAD), attributes(5), standards(5), streamio(7I)

SunOS 5.10			  18 Oct 2005			      close(2)
[top]

List of man pages available for Solaris

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net