1fopen(3) Library Functions Manual fopen(3)
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6 fopen, fdopen, freopen - stream open functions
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9 Standard C library (libc, -lc)
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12 #include <stdio.h>
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14 FILE *fopen(const char *restrict pathname, const char *restrict mode);
15 FILE *fdopen(int fd, const char *mode);
16 FILE *freopen(const char *restrict pathname, const char *restrict mode,
17 FILE *restrict stream);
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19 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
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21 fdopen():
22 _POSIX_C_SOURCE
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25 The fopen() function opens the file whose name is the string pointed to
26 by pathname and associates a stream with it.
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28 The argument mode points to a string beginning with one of the follow‐
29 ing sequences (possibly followed by additional characters, as described
30 below):
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32 r Open text file for reading. The stream is positioned at the be‐
33 ginning of the file.
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35 r+ Open for reading and writing. The stream is positioned at the
36 beginning of the file.
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38 w Truncate file to zero length or create text file for writing.
39 The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file.
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41 w+ Open for reading and writing. The file is created if it does
42 not exist, otherwise it is truncated. The stream is positioned
43 at the beginning of the file.
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45 a Open for appending (writing at end of file). The file is cre‐
46 ated if it does not exist. The stream is positioned at the end
47 of the file.
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49 a+ Open for reading and appending (writing at end of file). The
50 file is created if it does not exist. Output is always appended
51 to the end of the file. POSIX is silent on what the initial
52 read position is when using this mode. For glibc, the initial
53 file position for reading is at the beginning of the file, but
54 for Android/BSD/MacOS, the initial file position for reading is
55 at the end of the file.
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57 The mode string can also include the letter 'b' either as a last char‐
58 acter or as a character between the characters in any of the two-char‐
59 acter strings described above. This is strictly for compatibility with
60 ISO C and has no effect; the 'b' is ignored on all POSIX conforming
61 systems, including Linux. (Other systems may treat text files and bi‐
62 nary files differently, and adding the 'b' may be a good idea if you do
63 I/O to a binary file and expect that your program may be ported to non-
64 UNIX environments.)
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66 See NOTES below for details of glibc extensions for mode.
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68 Any created file will have the mode S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IW‐
69 GRP | S_IROTH | S_IWOTH [22m(0666), as modified by the process's umask
70 value (see umask(2)).
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72 Reads and writes may be intermixed on read/write streams in any order.
73 Note that ANSI C requires that a file positioning function intervene
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