select (2)

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(The comments found at the beginning of the groff file "man2/select.2freebsd".)

NAME

select - synchronous I/O multiplexing

LIBRARY

Lb libc

SYNOPSIS

In sys/select.h Ft int Fn select int nfds fd_set *readfds fd_set *writefds fd_set *exceptfds struct timeval *timeout Fn FD_SET fd &fdset Fn FD_CLR fd &fdset Fn FD_ISSET fd &fdset Fn FD_ZERO &fdset

DESCRIPTION

The Fn select system call examines the I/O descriptor sets whose addresses are passed in Fa readfds , Fa writefds , and Fa exceptfds to see if some of their descriptors are ready for reading, are ready for writing, or have an exceptional condition pending, respectively. The only exceptional condition detectable is out-of-band data received on a socket. The first Fa nfds descriptors are checked in each set; i.e., the descriptors from 0 through Fa nfds Ns No -1 in the descriptor sets are examined. On return, Fn select replaces the given descriptor sets with subsets consisting of those descriptors that are ready for the requested operation. The Fn select system call returns the total number of ready descriptors in all the sets.

The descriptor sets are stored as bit fields in arrays of integers. The following macros are provided for manipulating such descriptor sets: Fn FD_ZERO &fdset initializes a descriptor set Fa fdset to the null set. Fn FD_SET fd &fdset includes a particular descriptor Fa fd in Fa fdset . Fn FD_CLR fd &fdset removes Fa fd from Fa fdset . Fn FD_ISSET fd &fdset is non-zero if Fa fd is a member of Fa fdset , zero otherwise. The behavior of these macros is undefined if a descriptor value is less than zero or greater than or equal to FD_SETSIZE which is normally at least equal to the maximum number of descriptors supported by the system.

If Fa timeout is not a null pointer, it specifies the maximum interval to wait for the selection to complete. System activity can lengthen the interval by an indeterminate amount.

If Fa timeout is a null pointer, the select blocks indefinitely.

To effect a poll, the Fa timeout argument should not be a null pointer, but it should point to a zero-valued timeval structure.

Any of Fa readfds , Fa writefds , and Fa exceptfds may be given as null pointers if no descriptors are of interest.

RETURN VALUES

The Fn select system call returns the number of ready descriptors that are contained in the descriptor sets, or -1 if an error occurred. If the time limit expires, Fn select returns 0. If Fn select returns with an error, including one due to an interrupted system call, the descriptor sets will be unmodified.

ERRORS

An error return from Fn select indicates:

Bq Er EBADF

One of the descriptor sets specified an invalid descriptor.

Bq Er EFAULT

One of the arguments Fa readfds , writefds , exceptfds , or Fa timeout points to an invalid address.

Bq Er EINTR

A signal was delivered before the time limit expired and before any of the selected events occurred.

Bq Er EINVAL

The specified time limit is invalid. One of its components is negative or too large.

Bq Er EINVAL

The Fa nfds argument was invalid.

SEE ALSO

accept(2), connect(2), getdtablesize(2), gettimeofday(2), kqueue(2), poll(2), read(2), recv(2), send(2), write(2), clocks(7)

NOTES

The default size of FD_SETSIZE is currently 1024. In order to accommodate programs which might potentially use a larger number of open files with Fn select , it is possible to increase this size by having the program define FD_SETSIZE before the inclusion of any header which includes In sys/types.h .

If Fa nfds is greater than the number of open files, Fn select is not guaranteed to examine the unused file descriptors. For historical reasons, Fn select will always examine the first 256 descriptors.

STANDARDS

The Fn select system call and Fn FD_CLR , Fn FD_ISSET , Fn FD_SET , and Fn FD_ZERO macros conform with St -p1003.1-2001 .

HISTORY

The Fn select system call appeared in BSD 4.2

BUGS

St -susv2 allows systems to modify the original timeout in place. Thus, it is unwise to assume that the timeout value will be unmodified by the Fn select system call. Fx does not modify the return value, which can cause problems for applications ported from other systems.