Linux / Unix Command: close

Command Library

NAME

close - close a file descriptor  

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int close(int fd);

 

DESCRIPTION

close closes a file descriptor, so that it no longer refers to any file and may be reused. Any locks held on the file it was associated with, and owned by the process, are removed (regardless of the file descriptor that was used to obtain the lock).

If fd is the last copy of a particular file descriptor the resources associated with it are freed; if the descriptor was the last reference to a file which has been removed using unlink(2) the file is deleted.  

RETURN VALUE

close returns zero on success, or -1 if an error occurred.  

ERRORS

EBADF

fd isn't a valid open file descriptor.

EINTR

The close() call was interrupted by a signal.

EIO

An I/O error occurred.

 

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, SVID, POSIX, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3. SVr4 documents an additional ENOLINK error condition.  

SEE ALSO

open(2), fcntl(2), shutdown(2), unlink(2), fclose(3), fsync(2)

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