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.\" $OpenBSD: close.2,v 1.16 2013/03/31 08:34:27 guenther Exp $
.\" $NetBSD: close.2,v 1.5 1995/02/27 12:32:14 cgd Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993, 1994
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\" @(#)close.2 8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: March 31 2013 $
.Dt CLOSE 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm close
.Nd delete a descriptor
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <unistd.h>
.Ft int
.Fn close "int d"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn close
call deletes a descriptor from the per-process object
reference table.
If this is the last reference to the underlying object, the
object will be deactivated.
For example, on the last close of a file,
the current
.Em seek
pointer associated with the file is lost;
on the last close of a
.Xr socket 2 ,
associated naming information and queued data are discarded;
and on the last close of a file holding an advisory lock,
the lock is released (see
.Xr flock 2 ) .
However, the semantics of System V and
.St -p1003.1-88
dictate that all
.Xr fcntl 2
advisory record locks associated with a file for a given process
are removed when
.Em any
file descriptor for that file is closed by that process.
.Pp
When a process exits,
all associated file descriptors are freed, but since there is
a limit on active descriptors per process, the
.Fn close
function call
is useful when a large quantity of file descriptors are being handled.
.Pp
When a process forks (see
.Xr fork 2 ) ,
all descriptors for the new child process reference the same
objects as they did in the parent before the fork.
If a new process image is to then be run using
.Xr execve 2 ,
the process would normally inherit these descriptors.
Most of the descriptors can be rearranged with
.Xr dup2 2
or deleted with
.Fn close
before the
.Xr execve 2
is attempted, but since some of these descriptors may still
be needed should the
.Xr execve 2
fail, it is necessary to arrange for them
to be closed when the
.Xr execve 2
succeeds.
For this reason, the call
.Fn fcntl d F_SETFD FD_CLOEXEC
is provided,
which arranges that a descriptor will be closed after a successful
.Xr execve 2 ;
the call
.Fn fcntl d F_SETFD 0
restores the default,
which is to not close the descriptor.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.
Otherwise, a value of \-1 is returned and the global integer variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate the error.
.Sh ERRORS
.Fn close
will fail if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EBADF
.Fa d
is not an active descriptor.
.It Bq Er EINTR
An interrupt was received.
.It Bq Er EIO
An I/O error occurred while writing to the file system.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr accept 2 ,
.Xr closefrom 2 ,
.Xr dup2 2 ,
.Xr execve 2 ,
.Xr fcntl 2 ,
.Xr flock 2 ,
.Xr open 2 ,
.Xr pipe 2 ,
.Xr socket 2 ,
.Xr socketpair 2
.Sh STANDARDS
.Fn close
conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn close
system call first appeared in
.At v1 .
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