NAME

       posix_fallocate - allocate file space

LIBRARY

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <fcntl.h>

       int posix_fallocate(int fd, off_t offset, off_t len);

   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 CAVEATS, such as musl libc.

       ESPIPE fd refers to a pipe.

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 CAVEATS)                            │
       └──────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

STANDARDS

       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY

       glibc 2.1.94.  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.

CAVEATS

       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)