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SELECT(2)		    BSD System Calls Manual		     SELECT(2)

NAME
     select — synchronous I/O multiplexing

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/select.h>

     int
     select(int nfds, fd_set *readfds, fd_set *writefds, fd_set *exceptfds,
	 struct timeval *timeout);

     FD_SET(fd, &fdset);

     FD_CLR(fd, &fdset);

     FD_ISSET(fd, &fdset);

     FD_ZERO(&fdset);

DESCRIPTION
     Select() examines the I/O descriptor sets whose addresses are passed in
     readfds, writefds, and exceptfds to see if some of their descriptors are
     ready for reading, are ready for writing, or have an exceptional condi‐
     tion pending, respectively.  The only exceptional condition detectable is
     out-of-band data received on a socket.  The first nfds descriptors are
     checked in each set; i.e., the descriptors from 0 through nfds-1 in the
     descriptor sets are examined.  On return, select() replaces the given
     descriptor sets with subsets consisting of those descriptors that are
     ready for the requested operation.	 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:
     FD_ZERO(&fdset) initializes a descriptor set fdset to the null set.
     FD_SET(fd, &fdset) includes a particular descriptor fd in fdset.
     FD_CLR(fd, &fdset) removes fd from fdset.	FD_ISSET(fd, &fdset) is non-
     zero if fd is a member of 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 max‐
     imum number of descriptors supported by the system.

     If timeout is a non-nil pointer, it specifies the maximum interval to
     wait for the selection to complete.  System activity can lengthen the
     interval by an indeterminate amount.

     If timeout is a nil pointer, the select blocks indefinitely.

     To effect a poll, the timeout argument should be non-nil, pointing to a
     zero-valued timeval structure.

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

     Even if no descriptors are of interest, the timeout works as described,
     effectively putting the process into an interruptible sleep for the spec‐
     ified timeout.  If timeout is nil, the process will block until a signal
     is received.

RETURN VALUES
     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, select() returns 0.  If select() returns with an error, includ‐
     ing one due to an interrupted call, the descriptor sets will be unmodi‐
     fied.

ERRORS
     An error return from select() indicates:

     [EBADF]		One of the descriptor sets specified an invalid
			descriptor.

     [EINTR]		A signal was delivered before the time limit expired
			and before any of the selected events occurred.

     [EINVAL]		The specified time limit is invalid.  One of its com‐
			ponents is negative or too large.

     [EINVAL]		nfds was invalid.

SEE ALSO
     accept(2), connect(2), getdtablesize(2), gettimeofday(2), read(2),
     recv(2), send(2), write(2), clocks(7)

NOTES
     The default size of FD_SETSIZE is currently 1024.	In order to accommo‐
     date programs which might potentially use a larger number of open files
     with select(), it is possible to increase this size by having the program
     define FD_SETSIZE before the inclusion of any header which includes
     <sys/types.h>.

     If nfds is greater than the number of open files, select() is not guaran‐
     teed to examine the unused file descriptors.   For historical reasons,
     select() will always examine the first 256 descriptors.

HISTORY
     The select() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS
     Version 2 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv2”) allows systems to
     modify the original timeout in place.  Thus, it is unwise to assume that
     the timeout value will be unmodified by the select() call.

BSD				March 25, 1994				   BSD
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