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32.\" @(#)recv.2 6.11 (Berkeley) 5/1/91
33.\"
34.Dd May 1, 1991
35.Dt RECV 2
36.Os BSD 4.3r
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm recv ,
39.Nm recvfrom ,
40.Nm recvmsg
41.Nd receive a message from a socket
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
44.Fd #include <sys/socket.h>
45.Ft int
46.Fn recv "int s" "void *buf" "int len" "int flags"
47.Ft int
48.Fn recvfrom "int s" "void *buf" "int len" "int flags" "struct sockaddr *from" "int *fromlen"
49.Ft int
50.Fn recvmsg "int s" "struct msghdr *msg" "int flags"
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52.Fn Recvfrom
53and
54.Fn recvmsg
55are used to receive messages from a socket,
56and may be used to receive data on a socket whether or not
57it is connection-oriented.
58.Pp
59If
60.Fa from
61is non-nil, and the socket is not connection-oriented,
62the source address of the message is filled in.
63.Fa Fromlen
64is a value-result parameter, initialized to the size of
65the buffer associated with
66.Fa from ,
67and modified on return to indicate the actual size of the
68address stored there.
69.Pp
70The
71.Fn recv
72call is normally used only on a
73.Em connected
74socket (see
75.Xr connect 2 )
76and is identical to
77.Fn recvfrom
78with a nil
79.Fa from
80parameter.
81As it is redundant, it may not be supported in future releases.
82.Pp
83All three routines return the length of the message on successful
84completion.
85If a message is too long to fit in the supplied buffer,
86excess bytes may be discarded depending on the type of socket
87the message is received from (see
88.Xr socket 2 ) .
89.Pp
90If no messages are available at the socket, the
91receive call waits for a message to arrive, unless
92the socket is nonblocking (see
93.Xr fcntl 2 )
94in which case the value
95-1 is returned and the external variable
96.Va errno
97set to
98.Er EWOULDBLOCK.
99The receive calls normally return any data available,
100up to the requested amount,
101rather than waiting for receipt of the full amount requested;
102this behavior is affected by the socket-level options
103.Dv SO_RCVLOWAT
104and
105.Dv SO_RCVTIMEO
106described in
107.Xr getsockopt 2 .
108.Pp
109The
110.Xr select 2
111call may be used to determine when more data arrive.
112.Pp
113The
114.Fa flags
115argument to a recv call is formed by
116.Em or Ap ing
117one or more of the values:
118.Bl -column MSG_WAITALL -offset indent
119.It Dv MSG_OOB Ta process out-of-band data
120.It Dv MSG_PEEK Ta peek at incoming message
121.It Dv MSG_WAITALL Ta wait for full request or error
122.El
123The
124.Dv MSG_OOB
125flag requests receipt of out-of-band data
126that would not be received in the normal data stream.
127Some protocols place expedited data at the head of the normal
128data queue, and thus this flag cannot be used with such protocols.
129The MSG_PEEK flag causes the receive operation to return data
130from the beginning of the receive queue without removing that
131data from the queue.
132Thus, a subsequent receive call will return the same data.
133The MSG_WAITALL flag requests that the operation block until
134the full request is satisfied.
135However, the call may still return less data than requested
136if a signal is caught, an error or disconnect occurs,
137or the next data to be received is of a different type than that returned.
138.Pp
139The
140.Fn recvmsg
141call uses a
142.Fa msghdr
143structure to minimize the number of directly supplied parameters.
144This structure has the following form, as defined in
145.Ao Pa sys/socket.h Ac :
146.Pp
147.Bd -literal
148struct msghdr {
149 caddr_t msg_name; /* optional address */
150 u_int msg_namelen; /* size of address */
151 struct iovec *msg_iov; /* scatter/gather array */
152 u_int msg_iovlen; /* # elements in msg_iov */
153 caddr_t msg_control; /* ancillary data, see below */
154 u_int msg_controllen; /* ancillary data buffer len */
155 int msg_flags; /* flags on received message */
156};
157.Ed
158.Pp
159Here
160.Fa msg_name
161and
162.Fa msg_namelen
163specify the destination address if the socket is unconnected;
164.Fa msg_name
165may be given as a null pointer if no names are desired or required.
166.Fa Msg_iov
167and
168.Fa msg_iovlen
169describe scatter gather locations, as discussed in
170.Xr read 2 .
171.Fa Msg_control ,
172which has length
173.Fa msg_controllen ,
174points to a buffer for other protocol control related messages
175or other miscellaneous ancillary data.
176The messages are of the form:
177.Bd -literal
178struct cmsghdr {
179 u_int cmsg_len; /* data byte count, including hdr */
180 int cmsg_level; /* originating protocol */
181 int cmsg_type; /* protocol-specific type */
182/* followed by
183 u_char cmsg_data[]; */
184};
185.Ed
186As an example, one could use this to learn of changes in the data-stream
187in XNS/SPP, or in ISO, to obtain user-connection-request data by requesting
188a recvmsg with no data buffer provided immediately after an
189.Fn accept
190call.
191.Pp
192Open file descriptors are now passed as ancillary data for
193.Dv AF_UNIX
194domain sockets, with
195.Fa cmsg_level
196set to
197.Dv SOL_SOCKET
198and
199.Fa cmsg_type
200set to
201.Dv SCM_RIGHTS .
202.Pp
203The
204.Fa msg_flags
205field is set on return according to the message received.
206.Dv MSG_EOR
207indicates end-of-record;
208the data returned completed a record (generally used with sockets of type
209.Dv SOCK_SEQPACKET ) .
210.Dv MSG_TRUNC
211indicates that
212the trailing portion of a datagram was discarded because the datagram
213was larger than the buffer supplied.
214.Dv MSG_CTRUNC
215indicates that some
216control data were discarded due to lack of space in the buffer
217for ancillary data.
218.Dv MSG_OOB
219is returned to indicate that expedited or out-of-band data were received.
220.Pp
221.Sh RETURN VALUES
222These calls return the number of bytes received, or -1
223if an error occurred.
224.Sh ERRORS
225The calls fail if:
226.Bl -tag -width EWOULDBLOCKAA
227.It Bq Er EBADF
228The argument
229.Fa s
230is an invalid descriptor.
231.It Bq Er ENOTCONN
232The socket is assoicated with a connection-oriented protocol
233and has not been connected (see
234.Xr connect 2
235and
236.Xr accept 2 ).
237.It Bq Er ENOTSOCK
238The argument
239.Fa s
240does not refer to a socket.
241.It Bq Er EWOULDBLOCK
242The socket is marked non-blocking, and the receive operation
243would block, or
244a receive timeout had been set,
245and the timeout expired before data were received.
246.It Bq Er EINTR
247The receive was interrupted by delivery of a signal before
248any data were available.
249.It Bq Er EFAULT
250The receive buffer pointer(s) point outside the process's
251address space.
252.El
253.Sh SEE ALSO
254.Xr fcntl 2 ,
255.Xr read 2 ,
256.Xr select 2 ,
257.Xr getsockopt 2 ,
258.Xr socket 2
259.Sh HISTORY
260The
261.Nm
262function call appeared in
263.Bx 4.2 .