.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by .\" Chris Torek and the American National Standards Committee X3, .\" on Information Processing Systems. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)fopen.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 .\" $FreeBSD$ .\" .Dd October 17, 2011 .Dt FOPEN 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm fopen , .Nm fdopen , .Nm freopen .Nd stream open functions .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In stdio.h .Ft FILE * .Fn fopen "const char * restrict path" "const char * restrict mode" .Ft FILE * .Fn fdopen "int fildes" "const char *mode" .Ft FILE * .Fn freopen "const char *path" "const char *mode" "FILE *stream" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn fopen function opens the file whose name is the string pointed to by .Fa path and associates a stream with it. .Pp The argument .Fa mode points to a string beginning with one of the following letters: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Dq Li r Open for reading. The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file. Fail if the file does not exist. .It Dq Li w Open for writing. The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file. Create the file if it does not exist. .It Dq Li a Open for writing. The stream is positioned at the end of the file. Subsequent writes to the file will always end up at the then current end of file, irrespective of any intervening .Xr fseek 3 or similar. Create the file if it does not exist. .El .Pp An optional .Dq Li + following .Dq Li r , .Dq Li w , or .Dq Li a opens the file for both reading and writing. An optional .Dq Li x following .Dq Li w or .Dq Li w+ causes the .Fn fopen call to fail if the file already exists. .Pp The .Fa mode string can also include the letter .Dq Li b after either the .Dq Li + or the first letter. This is strictly for compatibility with .St -isoC and has no effect; the ``b'' is ignored. .Pp Any created files will have mode .Do Dv S_IRUSR \&| .Dv S_IWUSR \&| .Dv S_IRGRP \&| .Dv S_IWGRP \&| .Dv S_IROTH \&| .Dv S_IWOTH Dc .Pq Li 0666 , as modified by the process' umask value (see .Xr umask 2 ) . .Pp Reads and writes may be intermixed on read/write streams in any order, and do not require an intermediate seek as in previous versions of .Em stdio . This is not portable to other systems, however; .Tn ANSI C requires that a file positioning function intervene between output and input, unless an input operation encounters end-of-file. .Pp The .Fn fdopen function associates a stream with the existing file descriptor, .Fa fildes . The mode of the stream must be compatible with the mode of the file descriptor. The .Dq Li x mode option is ignored. When the stream is closed via .Xr fclose 3 , .Fa fildes is closed also. .Pp The .Fn freopen function opens the file whose name is the string pointed to by .Fa path and associates the stream pointed to by .Fa stream with it. The original stream (if it exists) is closed. The .Fa mode argument is used just as in the .Fn fopen function. .Pp If the .Fa path argument is .Dv NULL , .Fn freopen attempts to re-open the file associated with .Fa stream with a new mode. The new mode must be compatible with the mode that the stream was originally opened with: Streams open for reading can only be re-opened for reading, streams open for writing can only be re-opened for writing, and streams open for reading and writing can be re-opened in any mode. The .Dq Li x mode option is not meaningful in this context. .Pp The primary use of the .Fn freopen function is to change the file associated with a standard text stream .Dv ( stderr , stdin , or .Dv stdout ) . .Sh RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion .Fn fopen , .Fn fdopen and .Fn freopen return a .Tn FILE pointer. Otherwise, .Dv NULL is returned and the global variable .Va errno is set to indicate the error. .Sh ERRORS .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa mode argument to .Fn fopen , .Fn fdopen , or .Fn freopen was invalid. .El .Pp The .Fn fopen , .Fn fdopen and .Fn freopen functions may also fail and set .Va errno for any of the errors specified for the routine .Xr malloc 3 . .Pp The .Fn fopen function may also fail and set .Va errno for any of the errors specified for the routine .Xr open 2 . .Pp The .Fn fdopen function may also fail and set .Va errno for any of the errors specified for the routine .Xr fcntl 2 . .Pp The .Fn freopen function may also fail and set .Va errno for any of the errors specified for the routines .Xr open 2 , .Xr fclose 3 and .Xr fflush 3 . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr open 2 , .Xr fclose 3 , .Xr fileno 3 , .Xr fseek 3 , .Xr funopen 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn fopen and .Fn freopen functions conform to .St -isoC . The .Fn fdopen function conforms to .St -p1003.1-88 .