fclose

FCLOSE(3)                  Linux Programmer's Manual                 FCLOSE(3)



NAME
       fclose - close a stream

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdio.h>

       int fclose(FILE *stream);

DESCRIPTION
       The  fclose  function  dissociates the named stream from its underlying
       file or set of functions.  If the stream was being used for output, any
       buffered data is written first, using fflush(3).

       The  behaviour  of  fclose() is undefined if the stream parameter is an
       illegal pointer, or is a descriptor already passed to a previous  invo-
       cation of fclose().

RETURN VALUE
       Upon  successful  completion 0 is returned.  Otherwise, EOF is returned
       and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.  In  either
       case  any  further  access  (including another call to fclose()) to the
       stream results in undefined behaviour.

ERRORS
       EBADF  The filedescriptor underlying stream is not valid.

       The fclose function may also fail and set errno for any of  the  errors
       specified for the routines close(2), write(2) or fflush(3).

NOTES
       Note  that fclose only flushes the user space buffers provided by the C
       library. To ensure that the data is physically stored on disk the  ker-
       nel buffers must be flushed too, e.g. with sync(2) or fsync(2).

CONFORMING TO
       The fclose function conforms to ANSI X3.159-1989 (``ANSI C'').

SEE ALSO
       close(2), fcloseall(3), fflush(3), fopen(3), setbuf(3)



BSD MANPAGE                       1993-11-29                         FCLOSE(3)