sendfile man page on Ubuntu

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SENDFILE(2)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		   SENDFILE(2)

NAME
       sendfile - transfer data between file descriptors

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/sendfile.h>

       ssize_t sendfile(int out_fd, int in_fd, off_t *offset, size_t count);

DESCRIPTION
       sendfile()  copies  data	 between  one  file  descriptor	 and  another.
       Because this copying is done within  the	 kernel,  sendfile()  is  more
       efficient  than	the  combination  of read(2) and write(2), which would
       require transferring data to and from user space.

       in_fd should be a file descriptor opened for reading and out_fd	should
       be a descriptor opened for writing.

       If  offset  is  not NULL, then it points to a variable holding the file
       offset from which sendfile() will start reading data from in_fd.	  When
       sendfile() returns, this variable will be set to the offset of the byte
       following the last byte that was read.  If offset  is  not  NULL,  then
       sendfile()  does not modify the current file offset of in_fd; otherwise
       the current file offset is adjusted to reflect the number of bytes read
       from in_fd.

       count is the number of bytes to copy between the file descriptors.

       Presently  (Linux  2.6.9):  in_fd, must correspond to a file which sup‐
       ports mmap(2)-like operations (i.e., it cannot be a socket); and out_fd
       must refer to a socket.

       Applications  may  wish	to  fall  back to read(2)/write(2) in the case
       where sendfile() fails with EINVAL or ENOSYS.

RETURN VALUE
       If the transfer was successful, the number of bytes written  to	out_fd
       is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
       EAGAIN Non-blocking  I/O	 has  been  selected  using O_NONBLOCK and the
	      write would block.

       EBADF  The input file was not opened for reading or the output file was
	      not opened for writing.

       EFAULT Bad address.

       EINVAL Descriptor  is not valid or locked, or an mmap(2)-like operation
	      is not available for in_fd.

       EIO    Unspecified error while reading from in_fd.

       ENOMEM Insufficient memory to read from in_fd.

VERSIONS
       sendfile() is a new feature in Linux 2.2.  The include file  <sys/send‐
       file.h> is present since glibc 2.1.

CONFORMING TO
       Not specified in POSIX.1-2001, or other standards.

       Other  Unix  systems  implement sendfile() with different semantics and
       prototypes.  It should not be used in portable programs.

NOTES
       If you plan to use sendfile() for sending files to a  TCP  socket,  but
       need  to	 send some header data in front of the file contents, you will
       find it useful to employ the TCP_CORK option, described in  tcp(7),  to
       minimize the number of packets and to tune performance.

       In  Linux  2.4  and  earlier, out_fd could refer to a regular file, and
       sendfile() changed the current offset of that file.

SEE ALSO
       mmap(2), open(2), socket(2), splice(2)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.23 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/.

Linux				  2004-12-17			   SENDFILE(2)
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