SELECT

Section: System Calls (2)
Index Return to Main Contents

BSD mandoc
BSD 4.2

NAME

select - synchronous I/O multiplexing

SYNOPSIS

Fd #include <sys/types.h> Fd #include <sys/time.h> Fd #include <unistd.h> Ft int Fn select int nfds fd_set *readfds fd_set *writefds fd_set *exceptfds struct timeval *timeout Fn FD_SET fd &fdset Fn FD_CLR fd &fdset Fn FD_ISSET fd &fdset Fn FD_ZERO &fdset

DESCRIPTION

Fn Select examines the I/O descriptor sets whose addresses are passed in Fa readfds , Fa writefds , and Fa exceptfds to see if some of their descriptors are ready for reading, are ready for writing, or have an exceptional condition pending, respectively. The first Fa nfds descriptors are checked in each set; i.e., the descriptors from 0 through Fa nfds Ns No -1 in the descriptor sets are examined. On return, Fn select replaces the given descriptor sets with subsets consisting of those descriptors that are ready for the requested operation. Fn Select returns the total number of ready descriptors in all the sets.

The descriptor sets are stored as bit fields in arrays of integers. The following macros are provided for manipulating such descriptor sets: Fn FD_ZERO &fdset initializes a descriptor set Fa fdset to the null set. Fn FD_SET fd &fdset includes a particular descriptor Fa fd in Fa fdset . Fn FD_CLR fd &fdset removes Fa fd from Fa fdset . Fn FD_ISSET fd &fdset is non-zero if Fa fd is a member of Fa fdset , zero otherwise. The behavior of these macros is undefined if a descriptor value is less than zero or greater than or equal to FD_SETSIZE which is normally at least equal to the maximum number of descriptors supported by the system.

If Fa timeout is a non-nil pointer, it specifies a maximum interval to wait for the selection to complete. If Fa timeout is a nil pointer, the select blocks indefinitely. To affect a poll, the Fa timeout argument should be non-nil, pointing to a zero-valued timeval structure.

Any of Fa readfds , Fa writefds , and Fa exceptfds may be given as nil pointers if no descriptors are of interest.

RETURN VALUES

Fn Select returns the number of ready descriptors that are contained in the descriptor sets, or -1 if an error occurred. If the time limit expires, Fn select returns 0. If Fn select returns with an error, including one due to an interrupted call, the descriptor sets will be unmodified.

ERRORS

An error return from Fn select indicates:

Bq Er EBADF: One of the descriptor sets specified an invalid descriptor.
Bq Er EINTR: A signal was delivered before the time limit expired and before any of the selected events occurred.
Bq Er EINVAL: The specified time limit is invalid. One of its components is negative or too large.

BUGS

Although the provision of getdtablesize(2) was intended to allow user programs to be written independent of the kernel limit on the number of open files, the dimension of a sufficiently large bit field for select remains a problem. The default size FD_SETSIZE (currently 256) is somewhat larger than the current kernel limit to the number of open files. However, in order to accommodate programs which might potentially use a larger number of open files with select, it is possible to increase this size within a program by providing a larger definition of FD_SETSIZE before the inclusion of Aq Pa sys/types.h .

Fn Select should probably return the time remaining from the original timeout, if any, by modifying the time value in place. This may be implemented in future versions of the system. Thus, it is unwise to assume that the timeout value will be unmodified by the Fn select call.

HISTORY

The Fn select function call appeared in BSD 4.2

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 16:28:59 GMT, April 18, 2022