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
The select() system call 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 condition pending, respectively. The only exceptional condi‐
tion 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. The select() system call
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 not a null 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 null pointer, the select blocks indefinitely.
To effect a poll, the timeout argument should not be a null pointer, but
it should point to a zero-valued timeval structure.
Any of readfds, writefds, and exceptfds may be given as null pointers if
no descriptors are of interest.
RETURN VALUES
The select() system call 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, including one due to an interrupted system call, the descriptor
sets will be unmodified.
ERRORS
An error return from select() indicates:
[EBADF] One of the descriptor sets specified an invalid
descriptor.
[EFAULT] One of the arguments readfds, writefds, exceptfds, or
timeout points to an invalid address.
[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] The nfds argument was invalid.
SEE ALSOaccept(2), connect(2), getdtablesize(2), gettimeofday(2), kqueue(2),
poll(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.
STANDARDS
The select() system call and FD_CLR(), FD_ISSET(), FD_SET(), and
FD_ZERO() macros conform with IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
The select() system 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() system call.
FreeBSD does not modify the return value, which can cause problems for
applications ported from other systems.
BSD November 17, 2002 BSD
