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SEND(2) Linux Programmer's Manual SEND(2)
send, sendto, sendmsg - send a message on a socket
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t send(int sockfd, const void *buf, size_t len, int flags);
ssize_t sendto(int sockfd, const void *buf, size_t len, int flags,
const struct sockaddr *dest_addr, socklen_t addrlen);
ssize_t sendmsg(int sockfd, const struct msghdr *msg, int flags);
The system calls send(), sendto(), and sendmsg() are used to transmit
a message to another socket.
The send() call may be used only when the socket is in a connected
state (so that the intended recipient is known). The only difference
between send() and write(2) is the presence of flags. With a zero
flags argument, send() is equivalent to write(2). Also, the
following call
send(sockfd, buf, len, flags);
is equivalent to
sendto(sockfd, buf, len, flags, NULL, 0);
The argument sockfd is the file descriptor of the sending socket.
If sendto() is used on a connection-mode (SOCK_STREAM,
SOCK_SEQPACKET) socket, the arguments dest_addr and addrlen are
ignored (and the error EISCONN may be returned when they are not NULL
and 0), and the error ENOTCONN is returned when the socket was not
actually connected. Otherwise, the address of the target is given by
dest_addr with addrlen specifying its size. For sendmsg(), the
address of the target is given by msg.msg_name, with msg.msg_namelen
specifying its size.
For send() and sendto(), the message is found in buf and has length
len. For sendmsg(), the message is pointed to by the elements of the
array msg.msg_iov. The sendmsg() call also allows sending ancillary
data (also known as control information).
If the message is too long to pass atomically through the underlying
protocol, the error EMSGSIZE is returned, and the message is not
transmitted.
No indication of failure to deliver is implicit in a send(). Locally
detected errors are indicated by a return value of -1.
When the message does not fit into the send buffer of the socket,
send() normally blocks, unless the socket has been placed in
nonblocking I/O mode. In nonblocking mode it would fail with the
error EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK in this case. The select(2) call may be
used to determine when it is possible to send more data.
The flags argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following
flags.
MSG_CONFIRM (Since Linux 2.3.15)
Tell the link layer that forward progress happened: you got a
successful reply from the other side. If the link layer
doesn't get this it will regularly reprobe the neighbor (e.g.,
via a unicast ARP). Only valid on SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_RAW
sockets and currently implemented only for IPv4 and IPv6. See
arp(7) for details.
MSG_DONTROUTE
Don't use a gateway to send out the packet, send to hosts only
on directly connected networks. This is usually used only by
diagnostic or routing programs. This is defined only for
protocol families that route; packet sockets don't.
MSG_DONTWAIT (since Linux 2.2)
Enables nonblocking operation; if the operation would block,
EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK is returned (this can also be enabled
using the O_NONBLOCK flag with the F_SETFL fcntl(2)).
MSG_EOR (since Linux 2.2)
Terminates a record (when this notion is supported, as for
sockets of type SOCK_SEQPACKET).
MSG_MORE (Since Linux 2.4.4)
The caller has more data to send. This flag is used with TCP
sockets to obtain the same effect as the TCP_CORK socket
option (see tcp(7)), with the difference that this flag can be
set on a per-call basis.
Since Linux 2.6, this flag is also supported for UDP sockets,
and informs the kernel to package all of the data sent in
calls with this flag set into a single datagram which is
transmitted only when a call is performed that does not
specify this flag. (See also the UDP_CORK socket option
described in udp(7).)
MSG_NOSIGNAL (since Linux 2.2)
Requests not to send SIGPIPE on errors on stream oriented
sockets when the other end breaks the connection. The EPIPE
error is still returned.
MSG_OOB
Sends out-of-band data on sockets that support this notion
(e.g., of type SOCK_STREAM); the underlying protocol must also
support out-of-band data.
The definition of the msghdr structure follows. See recv(2) and
below for an exact description of its fields.
struct msghdr {
void *msg_name; /* optional address */
socklen_t msg_namelen; /* size of address */
struct iovec *msg_iov; /* scatter/gather array */
size_t msg_iovlen; /* # elements in msg_iov */
void *msg_control; /* ancillary data, see below */
size_t msg_controllen; /* ancillary data buffer len */
int msg_flags; /* flags on received message */
};
You may send control information using the msg_control and
msg_controllen members. The maximum control buffer length the kernel
can process is limited per socket by the value in
/proc/sys/net/core/optmem_max; see socket(7).
On success, these calls return the number of characters sent. On
error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
These are some standard errors generated by the socket layer.
Additional errors may be generated and returned from the underlying
protocol modules; see their respective manual pages.
EACCES (For UNIX domain sockets, which are identified by pathname)
Write permission is denied on the destination socket file, or
search permission is denied for one of the directories the
path prefix. (See path_resolution(7).)
(For UDP sockets) An attempt was made to send to a
network/broadcast address as though it was a unicast address.
EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK
The socket is marked nonblocking and the requested operation
would block. POSIX.1-2001 allows either error to be returned
for this case, and does not require these constants to have
the same value, so a portable application should check for
both possibilities.
EBADF An invalid descriptor was specified.
ECONNRESET
Connection reset by peer.
EDESTADDRREQ
The socket is not connection-mode, and no peer address is set.
EFAULT An invalid user space address was specified for an argument.
EINTR A signal occurred before any data was transmitted; see
signal(7).
EINVAL Invalid argument passed.
EISCONN
The connection-mode socket was connected already but a
recipient was specified. (Now either this error is returned,
or the recipient specification is ignored.)
EMSGSIZE
The socket type requires that message be sent atomically, and
the size of the message to be sent made this impossible.
ENOBUFS
The output queue for a network interface was full. This
generally indicates that the interface has stopped sending,
but may be caused by transient congestion. (Normally, this
does not occur in Linux. Packets are just silently dropped
when a device queue overflows.)
ENOMEM No memory available.
ENOTCONN
The socket is not connected, and no target has been given.
ENOTSOCK
The argument sockfd is not a socket.
EOPNOTSUPP
Some bit in the flags argument is inappropriate for the socket
type.
EPIPE The local end has been shut down on a connection oriented
socket. In this case the process will also receive a SIGPIPE
unless MSG_NOSIGNAL is set.
4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001. These function calls appeared in 4.2BSD.
POSIX.1-2001 describes only the MSG_OOB and MSG_EOR flags.
POSIX.1-2008 adds a specification of MSG_NOSIGNAL. The MSG_CONFIRM
flag is a Linux extension.
The prototypes given above follow the Single UNIX Specification, as
glibc2 also does; the flags argument was int in 4.x BSD, but unsigned
int in libc4 and libc5; the len argument was int in 4.x BSD and
libc4, but size_t in libc5; the addrlen argument was int in 4.x BSD
and libc4 and libc5. See also accept(2).
According to POSIX.1-2001, the msg_controllen field of the msghdr
structure should be typed as socklen_t, but glibc currently types it
as size_t.
See sendmmsg(2) for information about a Linux-specific system call
that can be used to transmit multiple datagrams in a single call.
Linux may return EPIPE instead of ENOTCONN.
An example of the use of sendto() is shown in getaddrinfo(3).
fcntl(2), getsockopt(2), recv(2), select(2), sendfile(2),
sendmmsg(2), shutdown(2), socket(2), write(2), cmsg(3), ip(7),
socket(7), tcp(7), udp(7)
This page is part of release 3.51 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 2012-04-23 SEND(2)
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