LSEEK(2)                                            Linux Programmer's Manual                                           LSEEK(2)



NAME
       lseek - reposition read/write file offset

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

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

DESCRIPTION
       The  lseek() function repositions the offset of the open file associated with the file descriptor fd to the argument off-
       set according to the directive whence as follows:

       SEEK_SET
              The offset is set to offset bytes.

       SEEK_CUR
              The offset is set to its current location plus offset bytes.

       SEEK_END
              The offset is set to the size of the file plus offset bytes.

       The lseek() function allows the file offset to be set beyond the end of the file (but this does not change  the  size  of
       the  file).  If data is later written at this point, subsequent reads of the data in the gap (a "hole") return null bytes
       ('\0') until data is actually written into the gap.

RETURN VALUE
       Upon successful completion, lseek() returns the resulting offset location as measured in bytes from the beginning of  the
       file.  Otherwise, a value of (off_t) -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       EBADF  fd is not an open file descriptor.

       EINVAL whence  is  not one of SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END; or the resulting file offset would be negative, or beyond the
              end of a seekable device.

       EOVERFLOW
              The resulting file offset cannot be represented in an off_t.

       ESPIPE fd is associated with a pipe, socket, or FIFO.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES
       This document's use of whence is incorrect English, but maintained for historical reasons.

       Some devices are incapable of seeking and POSIX does not specify which devices must support lseek().

       On Linux, using lseek() on a tty device returns ESPIPE.

       When converting old code, substitute values for whence with the following macros:

        old       new
       0        SEEK_SET
       1        SEEK_CUR
       2        SEEK_END
       L_SET    SEEK_SET
       L_INCR   SEEK_CUR
       L_XTND   SEEK_END

       SVr1-3 returns long instead of off_t, BSD returns int.

       Note that file descriptors created by dup(2) or fork(2) share the current file position pointer, so seeking on such files
       may be subject to race conditions.

SEE ALSO
       dup(2), fork(2), open(2), fseek(3), lseek64(3), posix_fallocate(3)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about
       reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                                      2001-09-24                                                   LSEEK(2)