.\" $OpenBSD: send.2,v 1.35 2022/09/09 13:52:59 mbuhl Exp $ .\" $NetBSD: send.2,v 1.6 1996/01/15 01:17:18 thorpej Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)send.2 8.2 (Berkeley) 2/21/94 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: September 9 2022 $ .Dt SEND 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm send , .Nm sendto , .Nm sendmsg , .Nm sendmmsg .Nd send a message from a socket .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/socket.h .Ft ssize_t .Fn send "int s" "const void *msg" "size_t len" "int flags" .Ft ssize_t .Fn sendto "int s" "const void *msg" "size_t len" "int flags" "const struct sockaddr *to" "socklen_t tolen" .Ft ssize_t .Fn sendmsg "int s" "const struct msghdr *msg" "int flags" .Ft int .Fn sendmmsg "int s" "const struct mmsghdr *mmsg" "unsigned int vlen" "int flags" .Sh DESCRIPTION .Fn send , .Fn sendto , .Fn sendmsg , and .Fn sendmmsg are used to transmit a message to another socket. .Fn send may be used only when the socket is in a .Em connected state, while .Fn sendto , .Fn sendmsg , and .Fn sendmmsg may be used at any time. .Pp The address of the target is given by .Fa to with .Fa tolen specifying its size. The length of the message is given by .Fa len . If the message is too long to pass atomically through the underlying protocol, the error .Er EMSGSIZE is returned, and the message is not transmitted. .Pp No indication of failure to deliver is implicit in a .Fn send . Locally detected errors are indicated by a return value of \-1. .Pp If no messages space is available at the socket to hold the message to be transmitted, then .Fn send normally blocks, unless the socket has been placed in non-blocking I/O mode. The .Xr select 2 or .Xr poll 2 system calls may be used to determine when it is possible to send more data. .Pp The .Fa flags parameter may include one or more of the following: .Pp .Bl -tag -width "MSG_DONTROUTEXX" -offset indent -compact .It Dv MSG_DONTROUTE bypass routing tables, silently ignored .It Dv MSG_DONTWAIT don't block .It Dv MSG_EOR terminate the record (SOCK_SEQPACKET only) .It Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL don't send .Dv SIGPIPE .It Dv MSG_OOB process out-of-band data .El .Pp The flag .Dv MSG_OOB is used to send .Dq out-of-band data on sockets that support this notion (e.g., .Dv SOCK_STREAM ) ; the underlying protocol must also support .Dq out-of-band data. .Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL is used to request not to send the .Dv SIGPIPE signal if an attempt to send is made on a socket that is shut down for writing or no longer connected. .Pp See .Xr recv 2 for a description of the .Fa msghdr and .Fa mmsghdr structures. .Sh RETURN VALUES The .Fn send , .Fn sendto , and .Fn sendmsg calls return the number of characters sent, or \-1 if an error occurred. The .Fn sendmmsg call returns the number of messages sent, or \-1 if an error occurred before the first message has been sent. .Sh ERRORS .Fn send , .Fn sendto , and .Fn sendmsg fail if: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBADF An invalid descriptor was specified. .It Bq Er ENOTSOCK The argument .Fa s is not a socket. .It Bq Er EFAULT An invalid user space address was specified for a parameter. .It Bq Er EMSGSIZE The socket requires that message be sent atomically, and the size of the message to be sent made this impossible. .It Bq Er EAGAIN The socket is marked non-blocking or the .Dv MSG_DONTWAIT flag is set and the requested operation would block. .It Bq Er ENOBUFS The system was unable to allocate an internal buffer. The operation may succeed when buffers become available. .It Bq Er 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. .It Bq Er EACCES The connection was blocked by .Xr pf 4 , or .Dv SO_BROADCAST is not set on the socket and a broadcast address was given as the destination. .It Bq Er EHOSTUNREACH The destination address specified an unreachable host. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa flags parameter is invalid. .It Bq Er EHOSTDOWN The destination address specified a host that is down. .It Bq Er ENETDOWN The destination address specified a network that is down. .It Bq Er ECONNREFUSED The destination host rejected the message (or a previous one). This error can only be returned by connected sockets. .It Bq Er ENOPROTOOPT There was a problem sending the message. This error can only be returned by connected sockets. .It Bq Er EDESTADDRREQ The socket is not connected, and no destination address was specified. .It Bq Er EPIPE The socket is shut down for writing or not longer connected and the .Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL flag is set. .El .Pp In addition, .Fn send and .Fn sendto may return the following error: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL .Fa len was larger than .Dv SSIZE_MAX . .El .Pp .Fn sendto and .Fn sendmsg may return the following errors: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EADDRNOTAVAIL No suitable address is available on the local machine. .It Bq Er EAFNOSUPPORT Addresses in the specified address family cannot be used with this socket. .It Bq Er EISCONN The socket is already connected, and a destination address was specified. .El .Pp .Fn sendmsg may return the following errors: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL The sum of the .Fa iov_len values in the .Fa msg_iov array overflowed an .Em ssize_t . .It Bq Er EMSGSIZE The .Fa msg_iovlen member of .Fa msg was less than 0 or larger than .Dv IOV_MAX . .It Bq Er EMFILE The message contains control information utilizing .Xr CMSG_DATA 3 to pass file descriptors, but too many file descriptors are already in-flight. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fcntl 2 , .Xr getsockopt 2 , .Xr poll 2 , .Xr recv 2 , .Xr select 2 , .Xr socket 2 , .Xr write 2 , .Xr CMSG_DATA 3 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn send , .Fn sendto , and .Fn sendmsg functions conform to .St -p1003.1-2008 . The .Dv MSG_DONTWAIT and .Dv MSG_NOSIGNAL flags are extensions to that specification. .Sh HISTORY The .Fn send function call appeared in .Bx 4.1c . The .Fn sendmmsg syscall first appeared in Linux 3.0 and was added to .Ox 7.2 .