#include <stdio.h> void flockfile(FILE *filehandle); int ftrylockfile(FILE *filehandle); void funlockfile(FILE *filehandle);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
All functions shown above:
/* Since glibc 2.24: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 199309L
|| /* Glibc <= 2.23: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE
|| /* Glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE
(Note: this locking has nothing to do with the file locking done by functions like flock(2) and lockf(3).)
All this is invisible to the C-programmer, but there may be two reasons to wish for more detailed control. On the one hand, maybe a series of I/O actions by one thread belongs together, and should not be interrupted by the I/O of some other thread. On the other hand, maybe the locking overhead should be avoided for greater efficiency.
To this end, a thread can explicitly lock the FILE object, then do its series of I/O actions, then unlock. This prevents other threads from coming in between. If the reason for doing this was to achieve greater efficiency, one does the I/O with the nonlocking versions of the stdio functions: with getc_unlocked(3) and putc_unlocked(3) instead of getc(3) and putc(3).
The flockfile() function waits for *filehandle to be no longer locked by a different thread, then makes the current thread owner of *filehandle, and increments the lockcount.
The funlockfile() function decrements the lock count.
The ftrylockfile() function is a nonblocking version of flockfile(). It does nothing in case some other thread owns *filehandle, and it obtains ownership and increments the lockcount otherwise.
| Interface | Attribute | Value |
| flockfile(), ftrylockfile(), funlockfile() | Thread safety | MT-Safe |
These functions are available when _POSIX_THREAD_SAFE_FUNCTIONS is defined.