ioctl

IOCTL(2)                  OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                 IOCTL(2)

NAME

     ioctl - control device

SYNOPSIS

     #include <sys/ioctl.h>

     int
     ioctl(int d, unsigned long request, ...);

DESCRIPTION

     The ioctl() function manipulates the underlying device parameters of
     special files.  In particular, many operating characteristics of
     character special files (e.g., terminals) may be controlled with ioctl()
     requests.

     The argument d must be an open file descriptor.  The third argument is
     called arg and contains additional information needed by this device to
     perform the requested function.  arg is either an int or a pointer to a
     device-specific data structure, depending upon the given request.

     An ioctl request has encoded in it whether the argument is an ``in''
     parameter or ``out'' parameter, and the size of the third argument (arg)
     in bytes.  Macros and defines used in specifying an ioctl request are
     located in the file <sys/ioctl.h>.

GENERIC IOCTLS

     Some ioctls are applicable to any file descriptor.  These include:

     FIOCLEX
             Set close-on-exec flag.  The file will be closed when exec(3) is
             invoked.

     FIONCLEX
             Clear close-on-exec flag.  The file will remain open across
             exec(3).

     Some generic ioctls are not implemented for all types of file
     descriptors.  These include:

     FIONREAD int
             Get the number of bytes that are immediately available for
             reading.

     FIONBIO int
             Set non-blocking I/O mode if the argument is non-zero.  In non-
             blocking mode, read(2) or write(2) calls return -1 and set errno
             to EAGAIN immediately when no data is available.

     FIOASYNC int
             Set asynchronous I/O mode if the argument is non-zero.  In
             asynchronous mode, the process or process group specified by
             FIOSETOWN will start receiving SIGIO signals when data is
             available.  The SIGIO signal will be delivered when data is
             available on the file descriptor.

     FIOSETOWN, FIOGETOWN int
             Set/get the process or the process group (if negative) that
             should receive SIGIO signals when data is available.

RETURN VALUES

     If an error has occurred, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to
     indicate the error.

ERRORS

     ioctl() will fail if:

     [EBADF]            d is not a valid descriptor.

     [ENOTTY]           d is not associated with a character special device.

     [ENOTTY]           The specified request does not apply to the kind of
                        object that the descriptor d references.

     [EINVAL]           request or arg is not valid.

     [EFAULT]           arg points outside the process's allocated address
                        space.

SEE ALSO

     cdio(1), chio(1), mt(1), execve(2), fcntl(2), intro(4), tty(4)

HISTORY

     An ioctl() function call appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

OpenBSD 5.1                      May 31, 2007                      OpenBSD 5.1