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TRUNCATE(2)		   Linux Programmers Manual		  TRUNCATE(2)



NAME
       truncate, ftruncate - truncate a file to a specified length

SYNOPSIS
       #include 
       #include 

       int truncate(const char *path, off_t length);
       int ftruncate(int fd, off_t length);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       getdtablesize(): _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 ||
       _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L

DESCRIPTION
       The truncate() and ftruncate() functions cause the regular  file  named
       by  path  or  referenced  by  fd to be truncated to a size of precisely
       length bytes.

       If the file previously was larger than this size,  the  extra  data  is
       lost.   If  the	file  previously  was shorter, it is extended, and the
       extended part reads as null bytes ('\0').

       The file offset is not changed.

       If the size changed, then the st_ctime  and  st_mtime  fields  (respec
       tively,	time  of last status change and time of last modification; see
       stat(2)) for the file are updated, and the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
       permission bits may be cleared.

       With  ftruncate(),  the file must be open for writing; with truncate(),
       the file must be writable.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
       set appropriately.

ERRORS
       For truncate():

       EACCES Search  permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
	      or the named file is  not  writable  by  the  user.   (See  also
	      path_resolution(7).)

       EFAULT Path points outside the processs allocated address space.

       EFBIG  The argument length is larger than the maximum file size. (XSI)

       EINTR  A signal was caught during execution.

       EINVAL The  argument length is negative or larger than the maximum file
	      size.

       EIO    An I/O error occurred updating the inode.

       EINTR  While blocked waiting to complete, the call was interrupted by a
	      signal handler; see fcntl(2) and signal(7).

       EISDIR The named file is a directory.

       ELOOP  Too  many  symbolic  links  were	encountered in translating the
	      pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an	entire
	      pathname exceeded 1023 characters.

       ENOENT The named file does not exist.

       ENOTDIR
	      A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

       EPERM  The  underlying  file  system  does not support extending a file
	      beyond its current size.

       EROFS  The named file resides on a read-only file system.

       ETXTBSY
	      The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file  that  is  being
	      executed.

       For  ftruncate()  the same errors apply, but instead of things that can
       be wrong with path, we now have things that can be wrong with the  file
       descriptor, fd:

       EBADF  fd is not a valid descriptor.

       EBADF or EINVAL
	      fd is not open for writing.

       EINVAL fd does not reference a regular file.

CONFORMING TO
       4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001 (these calls first appeared in 4.2BSD).

NOTES
       The  above  description is for XSI-compliant systems.  For non-XSI-com
       pliant systems, the POSIX standard allows two behaviors for ftruncate()
       when length exceeds the file length (note that truncate() is not speci
       fied at all in such an environment):  either  returning	an  error,  or
       extending  the file.  Like most Unix implementations, Linux follows the
       XSI requirement when dealing with native file systems.	However,  some
       non-native  file systems do not permit truncate() and ftruncate() to be
       used to extend a file beyond its current length: a notable  example  on
       Linux is VFAT.

SEE ALSO
       open(2), stat(2), path_resolution(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux				  2008-07-04			   TRUNCATE(2)




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