truncate() - Unix, Linux System Call

NAME

truncate, ftruncate - truncate a file to a specified length

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h> 
int truncate(const char *path, off_t length);
int ftruncate(int fd, off_t length);

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 (respectively, 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():

Error Code	Description
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(2).)
EFAULT	Path points outside the process’s 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.
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 fd:
EBADF	The fd is not a valid descriptor.
EBADF or EINVAL	The fd is not open for writing.
EINVAL	The 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-compliant systems, the POSIX standard allows two behaviours for ftruncate() when length exceeds the file length (note that truncate() is not specified 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.