SEND(2) BSD Programmer's Manual SEND(2)
send, sendto, sendmsg - send a message from a socket
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t
send(int s, const void *msg, size_t len, int flags);
ssize_t
sendto(int s, const void *msg, size_t len, int flags,
const struct sockaddr *to, socklen_t tolen);
ssize_t
sendmsg(int s, const struct msghdr *msg, int flags);
send(), sendto(), and sendmsg() are used to transmit a message to another
socket. send() may be used only when the socket is in a connected state,
while sendto() and sendmsg() may be used at any time.
The address of the target is given by to with tolen specifying its size.
The length of the message is given by len. If the message is too long to
pass atomically through the underlying protocol, the error EMSGSIZE is
returned, and the message is not transmitted.
No indication of failure to deliver is implicit in a send(). Locally
detected errors are indicated by a return value of -1.
If no messages space is available at the socket to hold the message to be
transmitted, then send() normally blocks, unless the socket has been
placed in non-blocking I/O mode. The select(2) or poll(2) system calls
may be used to determine when it is possible to send more data.
The flags parameter may include one or more of the following:
#define MSG_OOB 0x1 /* process out-of-band data */
#define MSG_DONTROUTE 0x4 /* bypass routing, use direct interface */
The flag MSG_OOB is used to send "out-of-band" data on sockets that sup-
port this notion (e.g., SOCK_STREAM); the underlying protocol must also
support "out-of-band" data. MSG_DONTROUTE is usually used only by diag-
nostic or routing programs.
See recv(2) for a description of the msghdr structure.
The call returns the number of characters sent, or -1 if an error oc-
curred.
send(), sendto(), and sendmsg() fail if:
[EBADF] An invalid descriptor was specified.
[ENOTSOCK] The argument s is not a socket.
[EFAULT] An invalid user space address was specified for a parame-
ter.
[EMSGSIZE] The socket requires that message be sent atomically, and
the size of the message to be sent made this impossible.
[EAGAIN] The socket is marked non-blocking and the requested opera-
tion would block.
[ENOBUFS] The system was unable to allocate an internal buffer. The
operation may succeed when buffers become available.
[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.
[EACCES] The SO_BROADCAST option is not set on the socket, and a
broadcast address was given as the destination.
[EHOSTUNREACH]
The destination address specified an unreachable host.
[EINVAL] The flags parameter is invalid.
[EHOSTDOWN] The destination address specified a host that is down.
[ENETDOWN] The destination address specified a network that is down.
[ECONNREFUSED]
The destination host rejected the message (or a previous
one). This error can only be returned by connected sockets.
[ENOPROTOOPT]
There was a problem sending the message. This error can
only be returned by connected sockets.
[EDESTADDRREQ]
The socket is not connected, and no destination address was
specified.
[EISCONN] The socket is already connected, and a destination address
was specified.
In addition, send() and sendto() may return the following error:
[EINVAL] len was larger than SSIZE_MAX.
Also, sendmsg() may return the following errors:
[EINVAL] The sum of the iov_len values in the msg_iov array over-
flowed an ssize_t.
[EMSGSIZE] The msg_iovlen member of msg was less than 0 or larger than
IOV_MAX.
[EAFNOSUPPORT]
Addresses in the specified address family cannot be used
with this socket.
fcntl(2), getsockopt(2), poll(2), recv(2), select(2), socket(2),
write(2), CMSG_DATA(3)
The send() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.
MirBSD #10-current July 28, 1998 1