_llseek(2)

_llseek2

Reposition read/write file offset

Usage

#include <sys/syscall.h>      /* Definition of SYS_* constants */
#include <unistd.h>

int syscall(SYS__llseek, unsigned int fd, unsigned long offset_high, unsigned long offset_low, loff_t *result, unsigned int whence);

Library

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

Overview

The _llseek() system call repositions the offset of the open file description associated with the file descriptor fd to the value

(offset_high << 32) | offset_low

This new offset is a byte offset relative to the beginning of the file, the current file offset, or the end of the file, depending on whether whence is SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END, respectively.

The new file offset is returned in the argument result. The type loff_t is a 64-bit signed type.

This system call exists on various 32-bit platforms to support seeking to large file offsets.

Return value

Upon successful completion, _llseek() returns 0. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

Errors

EBADF

fd is not an open file descriptor.

EFAULT

Problem with copying results to user space.

EINVAL

whence is invalid.

Versions

You probably want to use the lseek(2) wrapper function instead.

Releases

15 releases since Debian 2.1 (Slink); the text changed 14 times.

  1. 2.1
  2. 2.2
  3. 3.0
  4. 3.1
  5. 4.0
  6. 5.0
  7. 6.0
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. Arch

Standards

Linux.

From man-pages 6.19-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.