table of contents
other versions
- wheezy 3.44-1
- jessie 3.74-1
- jessie-backports 4.10-2~bpo8+1
- testing 4.10-2
- unstable 4.10-2
other languages
other sections
STDIN(3) | Linux Programmer's Manual | STDIN(3) |
NAME¶
stdin, stdout, stderr - standard I/O streamsSYNOPSIS¶
#include <stdio.h> extern FILE *stdin; extern FILE *stdout; extern FILE *stderr;
DESCRIPTION¶
Under normal circumstances every UNIX program has three streams opened for it when it starts up, one for input, one for output, and one for printing diagnostic or error messages. These are typically attached to the user's terminal (see tty(4) but might instead refer to files or other devices, depending on what the parent process chose to set up. (See also the "Redirection" section of sh(1).) The input stream is referred to as "standard input"; the output stream is referred to as "standard output"; and the error stream is referred to as "standard error". These terms are abbreviated to form the symbols used to refer to these files, namely stdin, stdout, and stderr.CONFORMING TO¶
The stdin, stdout, and stderr macros conform to C89 and this standard also stipulates that these three streams shall be open at program startup.NOTES¶
The stream stderr is unbuffered. The stream stdout is line-buffered when it points to a terminal. Partial lines will not appear until fflush(3) or exit(3) is called, or a newline is printed. This can produce unexpected results, especially with debugging output. The buffering mode of the standard streams (or any other stream) can be changed using the setbuf(3) or setvbuf(3) call. Note that in case stdin is associated with a terminal, there may also be input buffering in the terminal driver, entirely unrelated to stdio buffering. (Indeed, normally terminal input is line buffered in the kernel.) This kernel input handling can be modified using calls like tcsetattr(3); see also stty(1), and termios(3).SEE ALSO¶
csh(1), sh(1), open(2), fopen(3), stdio(3)COLOPHON¶
This page is part of release 3.44 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/.2008-07-14 | Linux |