Name

posix_fallocate — allocate file space

Synopsis

#include <fcntl.h>
int posix_fallocate( int fd,
  off_t offset,
  off_t len);
 
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
posix_fallocate():
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L

DESCRIPTION

The function posix_fallocate() ensures that disk space is allocated for the file referred to by the file descriptor fd for the bytes in the range starting at offset and continuing for len bytes. After a successful call to posix_fallocate(), subsequent writes to bytes in the specified range are guaranteed not to fail because of lack of disk space.

If the size of the file is less than offset+len, then the file is increased to this size; otherwise the file size is left unchanged.

RETURN VALUE

posix_fallocate() returns zero on success, or an error number on failure. Note that errno is not set.

ERRORS

EBADF

fd is not a valid file descriptor, or is not opened for writing.

EFBIG

offset+len exceeds the maximum file size.

EINTR

A signal was caught during execution.

EINVAL

offset was less than 0, or len was less than or equal to 0, or the underlying filesystem does not support the operation.

ENODEV

fd does not refer to a regular file.

ENOSPC

There is not enough space left on the device containing the file referred to by fd.

EOPNOTSUPP

The filesystem containing the file referred to by fd does not support this operation. This error code can be returned by C libraries that don't perform the emulation shown in NOTES, such as musl libc.

ESPIPE

fd refers to a pipe.

VERSIONS

posix_fallocate() is available since glibc 2.1.94.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface Attribute Value
posix_fallocate() Thread safety MT-Safe (but see NOTES)

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001.

POSIX.1-2008 says that an implementation shall give the EINVAL error if len was 0, or offset was less than 0. POSIX.1-2001 says that an implementation shall give the EINVAL error if len is less than 0, or offset was less than 0, and may give the error if len equals zero.

NOTES

In the glibc implementation, posix_fallocate() is implemented using the fallocate(2) system call, which is MT-safe. If the underlying filesystem does not support fallocate(2), then the operation is emulated with the following caveats:

  • The emulation is inefficient.

  • There is a race condition where concurrent writes from another thread or process could be overwritten with null bytes.

  • There is a race condition where concurrent file size increases by another thread or process could result in a file whose size is smaller than expected.

  • If fd has been opened with the O_APPEND or O_WRONLY flags, the function fails with the error EBADF.

In general, the emulation is not MT-safe. On Linux, applications may use fallocate(2) if they cannot tolerate the emulation caveats. In general, this is only recommended if the application plans to terminate the operation if EOPNOTSUPP is returned, otherwise the application itself will need to implement a fallback with all the same problems as the emulation provided by glibc.

SEE ALSO

fallocate(1), fallocate(2), lseek(2), posix_fadvise(2)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.11 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/.


  Copyright (c) 2006, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com>

%%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
%%%LICENSE_END