stdin(4)

stdin4

File descriptor files

Part of fd(4).

Overview

The files /dev/fd/0 through /dev/fd/# refer to file descriptors which can be accessed through the file system. If the file descriptor is open and the mode the file is being opened with is a subset of the mode of the existing descriptor, the call:

fd = open("/dev/fd/0", mode);

and the call:

fd = fcntl(0, F_DUPFD, 0);

are equivalent.

Opening the files /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr is equivalent to the following calls:

fd = fcntl(STDIN_FILENO,  F_DUPFD, 0);
fd = fcntl(STDOUT_FILENO, F_DUPFD, 0);
fd = fcntl(STDERR_FILENO, F_DUPFD, 0);

Flags to the open(2) call other than O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY and O_RDWR are ignored.

Files

/dev/fd/#
/dev/stdin
/dev/stdout
/dev/stderr

Releases

Unchanged in 153 releases since Mac OS X 10.1.

  1. 10.1–26.5

From xnu 12377.121.6 in macOS 26.5. Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.