IOCTL(2) BSD Programmer's Manual IOCTL(2)NAMEioctl - control device
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
int
ioctl(int d, unsigned long request, ...);
DESCRIPTION
The ioctl() function manipulates the underlying device parameters of spe-
cial files. In particular, many operating characteristics of character
special files (e.g., terminals) may be controlled with ioctl() requests.
The argument d must be an open file descriptor. The third argument is
called arg and contains additional information needed by this device to
perform the requested function. arg is either an int or a pointer to a
device-specific data structure, depending upon the given request.
An ioctl request has encoded in it whether the argument is an "in" param-
eter or "out" parameter, and the size of the third argument (arg) in
bytes. Macros and defines used in specifying an ioctl request are located
in the file <sys/ioctl.h>.
GENERIC IOCTLS
Some ioctls are applicable to any file descriptor. These include:
FIOCLEX
Set close-on-exec flag. The file will be closed when exec(3) is
invoked.
FIONCLEX
Clear close-on-exec flag. The file will remain open across
exec(3).
Some generic ioctls are not implemented for all types of file descrip-
tors. These include:
FIONREAD int
Get the number of bytes that are immediately available for read-
ing.
FIONBIO int
Set non-blocking I/O mode if the argument is non-zero. In non-
blocking mode, read(2) or write(2) calls return -1 and set errno
to EAGAIN immediately when no data is available.
FIONASYNC int
Set asynchronous I/O mode if the argument is non-zero. In asyn-
chronous mode, the process or process group specified by
FIOSETOWN will start receiving SIGIO signals when data is avail-
able. The SIGIO signal will be delivered when data is available
on the file descriptor.
FIOSETOWN, FIOGETOWN int
Set/get the process or the process group (if negative) that
should receive SIGIO signals when data is available.
RETURN VALUES
If an error has occurred, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to
indicate the error.
ERRORSioctl() will fail if:
[EBADF] d is not a valid descriptor.
[ENOTTY] d is not associated with a character special device.
[ENOTTY] The specified request does not apply to the kind of object
that the descriptor d references.
[EINVAL] request or arg is not valid.
[EFAULT] arg points outside the process's allocated address space.
SEE ALSOcdio(1), chio(1), mt(1), execve(2), fcntl(2), intro(4), tty(4)HISTORY
An ioctl() function call appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
MirOS BSD #10-current December 11, 1993 1
