RECV
Section: POSIX Programmer's Manual (3P)
Updated: 2017
Page Index
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
recv
--- receive a message from a connected socket
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t recv(int socket, void *buffer, size_t length, int flags);
DESCRIPTION
The
recv()
function shall receive a message from a connection-mode or
connectionless-mode socket. It is normally used with connected sockets
because it does not permit the application to retrieve the source
address of received data.
The
recv()
function takes the following arguments:
- socket
-
Specifies the socket file descriptor.
- buffer
-
Points to a buffer where the message should be stored.
- length
-
Specifies the length in bytes of the buffer pointed to by the
buffer
argument.
- flags
-
Specifies the type of message reception. Values of this argument are
formed by logically OR'ing zero or more of the following values:
-
- MSG_PEEK
-
Peeks at an incoming message. The data is treated as unread and the
next
recv()
or similar function shall still return this data.
- MSG_OOB
-
Requests out-of-band data. The significance and semantics of
out-of-band data are protocol-specific.
- MSG_WAITALL
-
On SOCK_STREAM sockets this requests that the function block until the
full amount of data can be returned. The function may return the
smaller amount of data if the socket is a message-based socket, if a
signal is caught, if the connection is terminated, if MSG_PEEK was
specified, or if an error is pending for the socket.
The
recv()
function shall return the length of the message written to the buffer
pointed to by the
buffer
argument. For message-based sockets, such as SOCK_DGRAM and
SOCK_SEQPACKET, the entire message shall be read in a single operation.
If a message is too long to fit in the supplied buffer, and MSG_PEEK is
not set in the
flags
argument, the excess bytes shall be discarded. For stream-based
sockets, such as SOCK_STREAM, message boundaries shall be ignored. In
this case, data shall be returned to the user as soon as it becomes
available, and no data shall be discarded.
If the MSG_WAITALL flag is not set, data shall be returned only up to
the end of the first message.
If no messages are available at the socket and O_NONBLOCK is not set on
the socket's file descriptor,
recv()
shall block until a message arrives. If no messages are available at
the socket and O_NONBLOCK is set on the socket's file descriptor,
recv()
shall fail and set
errno
to
[EAGAIN]
or
[EWOULDBLOCK].
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion,
recv()
shall return the length of the message in bytes. If no messages are
available to be received and the peer has performed an orderly
shutdown,
recv()
shall return 0. Otherwise, -1 shall be returned and
errno
set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The
recv()
function shall fail if:
- EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK
-
The socket's file descriptor is marked O_NONBLOCK and no data is
waiting to be received; or MSG_OOB is set and no out-of-band data is
available and either the socket's file descriptor is marked O_NONBLOCK
or the socket does not support blocking to await out-of-band data.
- EBADF
-
The
socket
argument is not a valid file descriptor.
- ECONNRESET
-
A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
- EINTR
-
The
recv()
function was interrupted by a signal that was caught, before any data
was available.
- EINVAL
-
The MSG_OOB flag is set and no out-of-band data is available.
- ENOTCONN
-
A receive is attempted on a connection-mode socket that is not
connected.
- ENOTSOCK
-
The
socket
argument does not refer to a socket.
- EOPNOTSUPP
-
The specified flags are not supported for this socket type or
protocol.
- ETIMEDOUT
-
The connection timed out during connection establishment, or due to a
transmission timeout on active connection.
The
recv()
function may fail if:
- EIO
-
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file
system.
- ENOBUFS
-
Insufficient resources were available in the system to perform the
operation.
- ENOMEM
-
Insufficient memory was available to fulfill the request.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
None.
APPLICATION USAGE
The
recv()
function is equivalent to
recvfrom()
with null pointer
address
and
address_len
arguments, and to
read()
if the
socket
argument refers to a socket and the
flags
argument is 0.
The
select()
and
poll()
functions can be used to determine when data is available to be
received.
RATIONALE
None.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
poll(),
pselect(),
read(),
recvmsg(),
recvfrom(),
send(),
sendmsg(),
sendto(),
shutdown(),
socket(),
write()
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017,
<sys_socket.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition,
Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear
in this page are most likely
to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to
man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .