pwritev(2)


NAME

   readv,  writev, preadv, pwritev, preadv2, pwritev2 - read or write data
   into multiple buffers

SYNOPSIS

   #include <sys/uio.h>

   ssize_t readv(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt);

   ssize_t writev(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt);

   ssize_t preadv(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt,
                  off_t offset);

   ssize_t pwritev(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt,
                   off_t offset);

   ssize_t preadv2(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt,
                   off_t offset, int flags);

   ssize_t pwritev2(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt,
                    off_t offset, int flags);

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

   preadv(), pwritev():
       Since glibc 2.19:
           _DEFAULT_SOURCE
       Glibc 2.19 and earlier:
           _BSD_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

   The readv() system call reads iovcnt buffers from the  file  associated
   with the file descriptor fd into the buffers described by iov ("scatter
   input").

   The writev() system call writes iovcnt buffers of data described by iov
   to the file associated with the file descriptor fd ("gather output").

   The  pointer  iov  points  to  an array of iovec structures, defined in
   <sys/uio.h> as:

       struct iovec {
           void  *iov_base;    /* Starting address */
           size_t iov_len;     /* Number of bytes to transfer */
       };

   The readv() system call works just like read(2)  except  that  multiple
   buffers are filled.

   The  writev() system call works just like write(2) except that multiple
   buffers are written out.

   Buffers  are  processed  in  array  order.   This  means  that  readv()
   completely  fills  iov[0]  before proceeding to iov[1], and so on.  (If
   there is insufficient data, then not all buffers pointed to by iov  may
   be  filled.)   Similarly,  writev()  writes  out the entire contents of
   iov[0] before proceeding to iov[1], and so on.

   The data transfers performed by readv() and writev()  are  atomic:  the
   data  written  by  writev()  is  written  as a single block that is not
   intermingled with output  from  writes  in  other  processes  (but  see
   pipe(7) for an exception); analogously, readv() is guaranteed to read a
   contiguous block of data from the file, regardless of  read  operations
   performed  in  other  threads  or  processes that have file descriptors
   referring to the same open file description (see open(2)).

   preadv() and pwritev()
   The preadv() system call combines  the  functionality  of  readv()  and
   pread(2).   It  performs  the  same  task as readv(), but adds a fourth
   argument, offset, which specifies the file offset at  which  the  input
   operation is to be performed.

   The  pwritev()  system  call combines the functionality of writev() and
   pwrite(2).  It performs the same task as writev(), but  adds  a  fourth
   argument,  offset,  which specifies the file offset at which the output
   operation is to be performed.

   The file offset is  not  changed  by  these  system  calls.   The  file
   referred to by fd must be capable of seeking.

   preadv2() and pwritev2()
   These system calls are similar to preadv() and pwritev() calls, but add
   a fifth argument, flags, which modifies  the  behavior  on  a  per-call
   basis.

   Unlike  preadv()  and pwritev(), if the offset argument is -1, then the
   current file offset is used and updated.

   The flags argument contains a  bitwise  OR  of  zero  or  more  of  the
   following flags:

   RWF_DSYNC (since Linux 4.7)
          Provide  a  per-write  equivalent  of  the O_DSYNC open(2) flag.
          This flag is meaningful only  for  pwritev2(),  and  its  effect
          applies only to the data range written by the system call.

   RWF_HIPRI (since Linux 4.6)
          High priority read/write.  Allows block-based filesystems to use
          polling of the device, which provides lower latency, but may use
          additional  resources.   (Currently, this feature is usable only
          on a file descriptor opened using the O_DIRECT flag.)

   RWF_SYNC (since Linux 4.7)
          Provide a per-write equivalent of the O_SYNC open(2) flag.  This
          flag  is  meaningful only for pwritev2(), and its effect applies
          only to the data range written by the system call.

RETURN VALUE

   On success, readv(), preadv() and preadv2() return the number of  bytes
   read;  writev(),  pwritev()  and  pwritev2() return the number of bytes
   written.

   Note that is not an error for a successful call to transfer fewer bytes
   than requested (see read(2) and write(2)).

   On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

   The  errors  are  as  given  for  read(2)  and  write(2).  Furthermore,
   preadv(), preadv2(), pwritev(), and pwritev2() can also  fail  for  the
   same  reasons  as  lseek(2).   Additionally,  the  following errors are
   defined:

   EINVAL The sum of the iov_len values overflows an ssize_t value.

   EINVAL The vector count, iovcnt, is less than zero or greater than  the
          permitted maximum.

   EINVAL An unknown flag is specified in flags.

VERSIONS

   preadv()  and pwritev() first appeared in Linux 2.6.30; library support
   was added in glibc 2.10.

   preadv2() and pwritev2() first appeared in Linux 4.6

CONFORMING TO

   readv(), writev(): POSIX.1-2001,  POSIX.1-2008,  4.4BSD  (these  system
   calls first appeared in 4.2BSD).

   preadv(), pwritev(): nonstandard, but present also on the modern BSDs.

   preadv2(), pwritev2(): nonstandard Linux extension.

NOTES

   POSIX.1  allows  an  implementation  to  place a limit on the number of
   items that can be passed in iov.  An implementation can  advertise  its
   limit  by  defining IOV_MAX in <limits.h> or at run time via the return
   value from sysconf(_SC_IOV_MAX).  On modern Linux systems, the limit is
   1024.  Back in Linux 2.0 days, this limit was 16.

   C library/kernel differences
   The  raw  preadv() and pwritev() system calls have call signatures that
   differ slightly from that of the corresponding GNU  C  library  wrapper
   functions  shown  in  the  SYNOPSIS.   The  final  argument, offset, is
   unpacked by the wrapper functions into  two  arguments  in  the  system
   calls:

       unsigned long pos_l, unsigned long pos

   These  arguments contain, respectively, the low order and high order 32
   bits of offset.

   Historical C library/kernel differences
   To deal with the fact that IOV_MAX was so  low  on  early  versions  of
   Linux,  the  glibc  wrapper functions for readv() and writev() did some
   extra work if they detected that  the  underlying  kernel  system  call
   failed  because  this  limit was exceeded.  In the case of readv(), the
   wrapper function allocated a temporary buffer large enough for  all  of
   the  items  specified  by iov, passed that buffer in a call to read(2),
   copied data from the buffer to the locations specified by the  iov_base
   fields  of the elements of iov, and then freed the buffer.  The wrapper
   function for writev() performed the analogous task  using  a  temporary
   buffer and a call to write(2).

   The need for this extra effort in the glibc wrapper functions went away
   with Linux 2.2 and later.  However, glibc  continued  to  provide  this
   behavior  until  version  2.10.   Starting  with glibc version 2.9, the
   wrapper functions provide this behavior only  if  the  library  detects
   that the system is running a Linux kernel older than version 2.6.18 (an
   arbitrarily selected kernel version).   And  since  glibc  2.20  (which
   requires  a  minimum Linux kernel version of 2.6.32), the glibc wrapper
   functions always just directly invoke the system calls.

   It is not advisable to mix calls to readv() or writev(), which  operate
   on  file  descriptors,  with  the functions from the stdio library; the
   results will be undefined and probably not what you want.

EXAMPLE

   The following code sample demonstrates the use of writev():

       char *str0 = "hello ";
       char *str1 = "world\n";
       struct iovec iov[2];
       ssize_t nwritten;

       iov[0].iov_base = str0;
       iov[0].iov_len = strlen(str0);
       iov[1].iov_base = str1;
       iov[1].iov_len = strlen(str1);

       nwritten = writev(STDOUT_FILENO, iov, 2);

SEE ALSO

   pread(2), read(2), write(2)

COLOPHON

   This page is part of release 4.09 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
   description  of  the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
   latest    version    of    this    page,    can     be     found     at
   https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.





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