The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6
IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition
Copyright © 2001-2004 The IEEE and The Open Group, All Rights reserved.
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NAME

posix_fallocate - file space control (ADVANCED REALTIME)

SYNOPSIS

[ADV] [Option Start] #include <fcntl.h>

int posix_fallocate(int
fd, off_t offset, off_t len); [Option End]

DESCRIPTION

The posix_fallocate() function shall ensure that any required storage for regular file data starting at offset and continuing for len bytes is allocated on the file system storage media. If posix_fallocate() returns successfully, subsequent writes to the specified file data shall not fail due to the lack of free space on the file system storage media.

If the offset+ len is beyond the current file size, then posix_fallocate() shall adjust the file size to offset+ len. Otherwise, the file size shall not be changed.

It is implementation-defined whether a previous posix_fadvise() call influences allocation strategy.

Space allocated via posix_fallocate() shall be freed by a successful call to creat() or open() that truncates the size of the file. Space allocated via posix_fallocate() may be freed by a successful call to ftruncate() that reduces the file size to a size smaller than offset+ len.

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion, posix_fallocate() shall return zero; otherwise, an error number shall be returned to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The posix_fallocate() function shall fail if:

[EBADF]
The fd argument is not a valid file descriptor.
[EBADF]
The fd argument references a file that was opened without write permission.
[EFBIG]
The value of offset+ len is greater than the maximum file size.
[EINTR]
A signal was caught during execution.
[EINVAL]
The len argument was zero or the offset argument was less than zero.
[EIO]
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to a file system.
[ENODEV]
The fd argument does not refer to a regular file.
[ENOSPC]
There is insufficient free space remaining on the file system storage media.
[ESPIPE]
The fd argument is associated with a pipe or FIFO.

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

None.

APPLICATION USAGE

The posix_fallocate() function is part of the Advisory Information option and need not be provided on all implementations.

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

creat(), ftruncate(), open(), unlink(), the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <fcntl.h>

CHANGE HISTORY

First released in Issue 6. Derived from IEEE Std 1003.1d-1999.

In the SYNOPSIS, the inclusion of <sys/types.h> is no longer required.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 2-2004, item XSH/TC2/D6/69 is applied, changing the function prototype in the SYNOPSIS section. The previous prototype was not large file-aware, and the standard developers felt it acceptable to make this change before implementations of this function become widespread.

End of informative text.

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