1TRUNCATE(2) Linux Programmer's Manual TRUNCATE(2)
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6 truncate, ftruncate - truncate a file to a specified length
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9 #include <unistd.h>
10 #include <sys/types.h>
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12 int truncate(const char *path, off_t length);
13 int ftruncate(int fd, off_t length);
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15 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
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17 truncate():
18 _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 ||
19 _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
20 || /* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
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22 ftruncate():
23 _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 ||
24 _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
25 || /* Since glibc 2.3.5: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
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28 The truncate() and ftruncate() functions cause the regular file named
29 by path or referenced by fd to be truncated to a size of precisely
30 length bytes.
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32 If the file previously was larger than this size, the extra data is
33 lost. If the file previously was shorter, it is extended, and the
34 extended part reads as null bytes ('\0').
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36 The file offset is not changed.
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38 If the size changed, then the st_ctime and st_mtime fields (respec‐
39 tively, time of last status change and time of last modification; see
40 stat(2)) for the file are updated, and the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
41 permission bits may be cleared.
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43 With ftruncate(), the file must be open for writing; with truncate(),
44 the file must be writable.
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47 On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
48 set appropriately.
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51 For truncate():
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53 EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
54 or the named file is not writable by the user. (See also
55 path_resolution(7).)
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57 EFAULT Path points outside the process's allocated address space.
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59 EFBIG The argument length is larger than the maximum file size. (XSI)
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61 EINTR While blocked waiting to complete, the call was interrupted by a
62 signal handler; see fcntl(2) and signal(7).
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64 EINVAL The argument length is negative or larger than the maximum file
65 size.
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67 EIO An I/O error occurred updating the inode.
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69 EISDIR The named file is a directory.
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71 ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the
72 pathname.
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74 ENAMETOOLONG
75 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire
76 pathname exceeded 1023 characters.
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78 ENOENT The named file does not exist.
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80 ENOTDIR
81 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
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83 EPERM The underlying file system does not support extending a file
84 beyond its current size.
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86 EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system.
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88 ETXTBSY
89 The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being
90 executed.
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92 For ftruncate() the same errors apply, but instead of things that can
93 be wrong with path, we now have things that can be wrong with the file
94 descriptor, fd:
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96 EBADF fd is not a valid descriptor.
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98 EBADF or EINVAL
99 fd is not open for writing.
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101 EINVAL fd does not reference a regular file.
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104 4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001 (these calls first appeared in 4.2BSD).
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107 The details in DESCRIPTION are for XSI-compliant systems. For non-XSI-
108 compliant systems, the POSIX standard allows two behaviors for ftrun‐
109 cate() when length exceeds the file length (note that truncate() is not
110 specified at all in such an environment): either returning an error, or
111 extending the file. Like most UNIX implementations, Linux follows the
112 XSI requirement when dealing with native file systems. However, some
113 nonnative file systems do not permit truncate() and ftruncate() to be
114 used to extend a file beyond its current length: a notable example on
115 Linux is VFAT.
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117 The original Linux truncate() and ftruncate() system calls were not
118 designed to handle large file offsets. Consequently, Linux 2.4 added
119 truncate64() and ftruncate64() system calls that handle large files.
120 However, these details can be ignored by applications using glibc,
121 whose wrapper functions transparently employ the more recent system
122 calls where they are available.
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124 On some 32-bit architectures, the calling signature for these system
125 calls differ, for the reasons described in syscall(2).
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128 A header file bug in glibc 2.12 meant that the minimum value of
129 _POSIX_C_SOURCE required to expose the declaration of ftruncate() was
130 200809L instead of 200112L. This has been fixed in later glibc ver‐
131 sions.
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134 open(2), stat(2), path_resolution(7)
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137 This page is part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project. A
138 description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
139 be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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143Linux 2013-04-01 TRUNCATE(2)