NAME

close − close a file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

int close (fildes)
int fildes;

DESCRIPTION

fildes is a file descriptor obtained from a creat, open, dup, fcntl, or pipe system call.  close closes the file descriptor indicated by fildes. All outstanding record locks owned by the process (on the file indicated by fildes) are removed. 

If a STREAMS [see intro(2)] file is closed, and the calling process had previously registered to receive a SIGPOLL signal [see signal(2) and sigset(2)] for events associated with that file [see I_SETSIG in streamio(7)], the calling process will be unregistered for events associated with the file.  The last close for a stream causes the stream associated with fildes to be dismantled.  If O_NDELAY is not set and there have been no signals posted for the stream, close waits up to 15 seconds, for each module and driver, for any output to drain before dismantling the stream.  If the O_NDELAY flag is set or if there are any pending signals, close does not wait for output to drain, and dismantles the stream immediately. 

The named file is closed unless one or more of the following are true:

­[EBADF] fildes is not a valid open file descriptor. 

­[EINTR] A signal was caught during the close system call. 

­[ENOLINK] fildes is on a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer ctive. 

SEE ALSO

creat(2), dup(2), exec(2), fcntl(2), intro(2), open(2), pipe(2), signal(2), sigset(2), streamio(7)

DIAGNOSTICS

Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value of −1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. 
 

September 02, 1992