path: root/man3/fmemopen.3

.\" Copyright 2005 walter harms (walter.harms@informatik.uni-oldenburg.de),
.\" and Copyright 2005, 2012 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\" Distributed under the GPL.
.\" 2008-12-04, Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>: Document open_wmemstream()
.\"
.TH FMEMOPEN 3 2012-04-28 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
fmemopen, open_memstream, open_wmemstream \-  open memory as stream
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdio.h>

.BI "FILE *fmemopen(void *"buf ", size_t "size ", const char *" mode ");"

.BI "FILE *open_memstream(char **" ptr ", size_t *" sizeloc );

.B #include <wchar.h>

.BI "FILE *open_wmemstream(wchar_t **" ptr ", size_t *" sizeloc );
.fi
.sp
.in -4n
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
.in
.sp
.BR fmemopen (),
.BR open_memstream (),
.BR open_wmemstream ():
.PD 0
.ad l
.RS 4
.TP 4
Since glibc 2.10:
_XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 700 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200809L
.TP
Before glibc 2.10:
_GNU_SOURCE
.RE
.ad
.PD
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR fmemopen ()
function opens a stream that permits the access specified by
.IR mode .
The stream allows I/O to be performed on the string or memory buffer
pointed to by
.IR buf .
This buffer must be at least
.I size
bytes long.
.PP
The argument
.I mode
is the same as for
.BR fopen (3).
If
.I mode
specifies an append mode, then the initial file position is set to
the location of the first null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) in the buffer;
otherwise the initial file position is set to the start of the buffer.
Since glibc 2.9,
the letter \(aqb\(aq may be specified as the second character in
.IR mode .
This provides "binary" mode:
writes don't implicitly add a terminating null byte, and
.BR fseek (3)
.B SEEK_END
is relative to the end of the buffer (i.e., the value specified by the
.I size
argument), rather than the current string length.
.PP
When a stream that has been opened for writing is flushed
.RB ( fflush (3))
or closed
.RB ( fclose (3)),
a null byte is written at the end of the buffer if there is space.
The caller should ensure that an extra byte is available in the
buffer
(and that
.I size
counts that byte)
to allow for this.

Attempts to write more than
.I size
bytes to the buffer result in an error.
(By default, such errors will only be visible when the
.I stdio
buffer is flushed.
Disabling buffering with
.I setbuf(fp,\ NULL)
may be useful to detect errors at the time of an output operation.
Alternatively, the caller can explicitly set
.I buf
as the stdio stream buffer, at the same time informing stdio
of the buffer's size, using
.IR "setbuffer(fp, buf, size)" .)
.\" See http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1995
.\" and
.\" http://sources.redhat.com/ml/libc-alpha/2006-04/msg00064.html
.PP
In a stream opened for reading,
null bytes (\(aq\\0\(aq) in the buffer do not cause read
operations to return an end-of-file indication.
A read from the buffer will only indicate end-of-file
when the file pointer advances
.I size
bytes past the start of the buffer.
.PP
If
.I buf
is specified as NULL, then
.BR fmemopen ()
dynamically allocates a buffer
.I size
bytes long.
This is useful for an application that wants to write data to
a temporary buffer and then read it back again.
The buffer is automatically freed when the stream is closed.
Note that the caller has no way to obtain a pointer to the
temporary buffer allocated by this call (but see
.BR open_memstream ()
below).

The
.BR open_memstream ()
function opens a stream for writing to a buffer.
The buffer
is dynamically allocated (as with
.BR malloc (3)),
and automatically grows as required.
After closing the stream, the caller should
.BR free (3)
this buffer.

When the stream is closed
.RB ( fclose (3))
or flushed
.RB ( fflush (3)),
the locations pointed to by
.I ptr
and
.I sizeloc
are updated to contain, respectively, a pointer to the buffer and the
current size of the buffer.
These values remain valid only as long as the caller
performs no further output on the stream.
If further output is performed, then the stream
must again be flushed before trying to access these variables.

A null byte is maintained at the end of the buffer.
This byte is
.I not
included in the size value stored at
.IR sizeloc .

The stream's file position can be changed with
.BR fseek (3)
or
.BR fseeko (3).
Moving the file position past the end
of the data already written fills the intervening space with
zeros.

The
.BR open_wmemstream ()
is similar to
.BR open_memstream (),
but operates on wide characters instead of bytes.
.SH RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion
.BR fmemopen (),
.BR open_memstream ()
and
.BR open_wmemstream ()
return a
.I FILE
pointer.
Otherwise, NULL is returned and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH VERSIONS
.BR fmemopen ()
and
.BR open_memstream ()
were already available in glibc 1.0.x.
.BR open_wmemstream ()
is available since glibc 2.4.
.SH CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2008.
These functions are not specified in POSIX.1-2001,
and are not widely available on other systems.

POSIX.1-2008 specifies that \(aqb\(aq in
.IR mode
shall be ignored.
However, Technical Corrigendum 1
.\" http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=396
adjusts the standard to allow implementation-specific treatment for this case,
thus permitting the glibc treatment of \(aqb\(aq.
.SH NOTES
There is no file descriptor associated with the file stream
returned by these functions
(i.e.,
.BR fileno (3)
will return an error if called on the returned stream).
.SH BUGS
In glibc before version 2.7, seeking past the end of a stream created by
.BR open_memstream ()
does not enlarge the buffer; instead the
.BR fseek (3)
call fails, returning \-1.
.\" http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1996

If
.I size
is specified as zero,
.BR fmemopen ()
fails with the error
.BR EINVAL .
.\" FIXME http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11216
It would be more consistent if this case successfully created
a stream that then returned end of file on the first attempt at reading.
Furthermore, POSIX.1-2008 does not specify a failure for this case.

Specifying append mode ("a" or "a+") for
.BR fmemopen ()
sets the initial file position to the first null byte, but
.\" FIXME http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13152
(if the file offset is reset to a location other than
the end of the stream)
does not force subsequent writes to append at the end of the stream.

If the
.I mode
argument to
.BR fmemopen ()
specifies append ("a" or "a+"), and the
.I size
argument does not cover a null byte in
.IR buf
then, according to POSIX.1-2008,
the initial file position should be set to
the next byte after the end of the buffer.
However, in this case the glibc
.\" FIXME http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13151
.BR fmemopen ()
sets the file position to \-1.

To specify binary mode for
.BR fmemopen ()
the \(aqb\(aq must be the
.I second
character in
.IR mode .
Thus, for example, "wb+" has the desired effect, but "w+b" does not.
This is inconsistent with the treatment of
.\" FIXME http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12836
.IR mode
by
.BR fopen (3).

The glibc 2.9 addition of "binary" mode for
.BR fmemopen ()
.\" http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=6544
silently changed the ABI: previously,
.BR fmemopen ()
ignored \(aqb\(aq in
.IR mode .
.SH EXAMPLE
The program below uses
.BR fmemopen ()
to open an input buffer, and
.BR open_memstream ()
to open a dynamically sized output buffer.
The program scans its input string (taken from the program's
first command-line argument) reading integers,
and writes the squares of these integers to the output buffer.
An example of the output produced by this program is the following:
.in +4n
.nf

.RB "$" " ./a.out \(aq1 23 43\(aq"
size=11; ptr=1 529 1849
.fi
.in
.SS Program source
\&
.nf
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define handle_error(msg) \\
    do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    FILE *out, *in;
    int v, s;
    size_t size;
    char *ptr;

    if (argc != 2) {
	fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <file>\\n", argv[0]);
	exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    in = fmemopen(argv[1], strlen(argv[1]), "r");
    if (in == NULL)
        handle_error("fmemopen");

    out = open_memstream(&ptr, &size);
    if (out == NULL)
        handle_error("open_memstream");

    for (;;) {
        s = fscanf(in, "%d", &v);
        if (s <= 0)
            break;

        s = fprintf(out, "%d ", v * v);
        if (s == \-1)
            handle_error("fprintf");
    }
    fclose(in);
    fclose(out);
    printf("size=%ld; ptr=%s\\n", (long) size, ptr);
    free(ptr);
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
.fi
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR fopen (3),
.BR fopencookie (3)