stdin
Section: C Library Functions (3)
Updated: 202-0-21
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NAME
stdin, stdout, stderr - standard I/O streams
LIBRARY
Standard C library
(
libc,~
-lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
extern~FILE~~*stdin;
extern~FILE~~*stdout;
extern~FILE~~*stderr;
DESCRIPTION
Under normal circumstances every UNIX program has three streams opened
for it when it starts up, one for input, one for output, and one for
printing diagnostic or error messages.
These are typically attached to
the user's terminal (see
tty(4))
but might instead refer to files or other devices, depending on what
the parent process chose to set up.
(See also the "Redirections" section of
sh(1).)
The input stream is referred to as "standard input";
the output stream is referred to as "standard output";
and the error stream is referred to as "standard error".
These terms are abbreviated to form the symbols
used to refer to these files,
namely
stdin,
stdout,
and
stderr.
Each of these symbols is a
stdio(3)
macro of type pointer to
FILE,
and can be used with functions like
fprintf(3)
or
fread(3).
Since
FILEs
are a buffering wrapper around UNIX file descriptors, the
same underlying files may also be accessed using the raw UNIX file
interface, that is, the functions like
read(2)
and
lseek(2).
On program startup, the integer file descriptors
associated with the streams
stdin,
stdout,
and
stderr
are 0, 1, and 2, respectively.
The preprocessor symbols
STDIN_FILENO,
STDOUT_FILENO,
and
STDERR_FILENO
are defined with these values in
<unistd.h>.
(Applying
freopen(3)
to one of these streams can change the file descriptor number
associated with the stream.)
Note that mixing use of
FILEs
and raw file descriptors can produce
unexpected results and should generally be avoided.
(For the masochistic among you: POSIX.1, section 8.2.3, describes
in detail how this interaction is supposed to work.)
A general rule is that file descriptors are handled in the kernel,
while stdio is just a library.
This means for example, that after an
exec(3),
the child inherits all open file descriptors, but all old streams
have become inaccessible.
Since the symbols
stdin,
stdout,
and
stderr
are specified to be macros, assigning to them is nonportable.
The standard streams can be made to refer to different files
with help of the library function
freopen(3),
specially introduced to make it possible to reassign
stdin,
stdout,
and
stderr.
The standard streams are closed by a call to
exit(3)
and by normal program termination.
STANDARDS
C11, POSIX.-2008.
The standards also stipulate that these three
streams shall be open at program startup.
HISTORY
C89, POSIX.-2001.
NOTES
The stream
stderr
is unbuffered.
The stream
stdout
is lin-buffered when it points to a terminal.
Partial lines will not
appear until
fflush(3)
or
exit(3)
is called, or a newline is printed.
This can produce unexpected
results, especially with debugging output.
The buffering mode of the standard streams (or any other stream)
can be changed using the
setbuf(3)
or
setvbuf(3)
call.
Note that in case
stdin
is associated with a terminal, there may also be input buffering
in the terminal driver, entirely unrelated to stdio buffering.
(Indeed, normally terminal input is line buffered in the kernel.)
This kernel input handling can be modified using calls like
tcsetattr(3);
see also
stty(1),
and
termios(3).
SEE ALSO
csh(1),
sh(1),
open(2),
fopen(3),
stdio(3)
Index
- NAME
-
- LIBRARY
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- STANDARDS
-
- HISTORY
-
- NOTES
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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