.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Tim J. Robbins .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" 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. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR 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 AUTHOR 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. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/stdio/flockfile.3,v 1.3 2003/01/13 01:29:14 tjr Exp $ .\" .Dd January 10, 2003 .Dt FLOCKFILE 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm flockfile , .Nm ftrylockfile , .Nm funlockfile .Nd "stdio locking functions" .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In stdio.h .Ft void .Fn flockfile "FILE *stream" .Ft int .Fn ftrylockfile "FILE *stream" .Ft void .Fn funlockfile "FILE *stream" .Sh DESCRIPTION These functions provide explicit application-level locking of stdio streams. They can be used to avoid output from multiple threads being interspersed, input being dispersed among multiple readers, and to avoid the overhead of locking the stream for each operation. .Pp The .Fn flockfile function acquires an exclusive lock on the specified stream. If another thread has already locked the stream, .Fn flockfile will block until the lock is released. .Pp The .Fn ftrylockfile function is a non-blocking version of .Fn flockfile ; if the lock cannot be acquired immediately, .Fn ftrylockfile returns non-zero instead of blocking. .Pp The .Fn funlockfile function releases the lock on a stream acquired by an earlier call to .Fn flockfile or .Fn ftrylockfile . .Pp These functions behave as if there is a lock count associated with each stream. Each time .Fn flockfile is called on the stream, the count is incremented, and each time .Fn funlockfile is called on the stream, the count is decremented. The lock is only actually released when the count reaches zero. .Sh RETURN VALUES The .Fn flockfile and .Fn funlockfile functions return no value. .Pp The .Fn ftrylockfile function returns zero if the stream was successfully locked, non-zero otherwise. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr getc_unlocked 3 , .Xr putc_unlocked 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn flockfile , .Fn ftrylockfile and .Fn funlockfile functions conform to .St -p1003.1-2001 .