GETDTABLESIZE(3)

NAME
getdtablesize - get file descriptor table size

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>

int getdtablesize(void);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

getdtablesize():
    Since glibc 2.12:
        /* Glibc since 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
            || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE
            || ! (_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L)
    Before glibc 2.12:
        _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500

DESCRIPTION
getdtablesize() returns the maximum number of files a process can have open, one more than the largest possible value for a file descriptor.

RETURN VALUE
The current limit on the number of open files per process.

ERRORS
On Linux, getdtablesize() can return any of the errors described for getrlimit(2); see NOTES below.

ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value
 | Thread safety | MT-Safe

CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.4BSD (the getdtablesize() function first appeared in 4.2BSD). It is not specified in POSIX.1; portable applications should employ sysconf(_SC_OPEN_MAX) instead of this call.

NOTES
getdtablesize() is implemented as a libc library function. The glibc version calls getrlimit(2) and returns the current RLIMIT_NOFILE limit, or OPEN_MAX when that fails.

SEE ALSO
close(2), dup(2), getrlimit(2), open(2)

COLOPHON
This page is part of release 4.05 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.