stdin(3) Library Functions Manual stdin(3)
NAME
stdin, stdout, stderr - standard I/O streams
LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
extern FILE *stdin;
extern FILE *stdout;
extern FILE *stderr;
DESCRIPTION
Under normal circumstances every UNIX program has three streams opened
for it when it starts up, one for input, one for output, and one for
printing diagnostic or error messages. These are typically attached to
the user's terminal (see tty(4)) but might instead refer to files or
other devices, depending on what the parent process chose to set up.
(See also the "Redirection" section of sh(1).)
The input stream is referred to as "standard input"; the output stream
is referred to as "standard output"; and the error stream is referred to
as "standard error". These terms are abbreviated to form the symbols
used to refer to these files, namely stdin, stdout, and stderr.
Each of these symbols is a stdio(3) macro of type pointer to FILE, and
can be used with functions like fprintf(3) or fread(3).
Since FILEs are a buffering wrapper around UNIX file descriptors, the
same underlying files may also be accessed using the raw UNIX file in-
terface, that is, the functions like read(2) and lseek(2).
On program startup, the integer file descriptors associated with the
streams stdin, stdout, and stderr are 0, 1, and 2, respectively. The
preprocessor symbols STDIN_FILENO, STDOUT_FILENO, and STDERR_FILENO are
defined with these values in <unistd.h>. (Applying freopen(3) to one of
these streams can change the file descriptor number associated with the
stream.)
Note that mixing use of FILEs and raw file descriptors can produce unex-
pected results and should generally be avoided. (For the masochistic
among you: POSIX.1, section 8.2.3, describes in detail how this interac-
tion is supposed to work.) A general rule is that file descriptors are
handled in the kernel, while stdio is just a library. This means for
example, that after an exec(3), the child inherits all open file de-
scriptors, but all old streams have become inaccessible.
Since the symbols stdin, stdout, and stderr are specified to be macros,
assigning to them is nonportable. The standard streams can be made to
refer to different files with help of the library function freopen(3),
specially introduced to make it possible to reassign stdin, stdout, and
stderr. The standard streams are closed by a call to exit(3) and by
normal program termination.
STANDARDS
C11, POSIX.1-2008.
The standards also stipulate that these three streams shall be open at
program startup.
HISTORY
C89, POSIX.1-2001.
NOTES
The stream stderr is unbuffered. The stream stdout is line-buffered
when it points to a terminal. Partial lines will not appear until
fflush(3) or exit(3) is called, or a newline is printed. This can pro-
duce unexpected results, especially with debugging output. The buffer-
ing mode of the standard streams (or any other stream) can be changed
using the setbuf(3) or setvbuf(3) call. Note that in case stdin is as-
sociated with a terminal, there may also be input buffering in the ter-
minal driver, entirely unrelated to stdio buffering. (Indeed, normally
terminal input is line buffered in the kernel.) This kernel input han-
dling can be modified using calls like tcsetattr(3); see also stty(1),
and termios(3).
SEE ALSO
csh(1), sh(1), open(2), fopen(3), stdio(3)
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