ungetc(3)

ungetc3

Un-get character from input stream

Usage

#include <stdio.h>

int

ungetc(int c, FILE *stream);

Library

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

Overview

The ungetc() function pushes the character c (converted to an unsigned char) back onto the input stream pointed to by stream. The pushed-back characters will be returned by subsequent reads on the stream (in reverse order). A successful intervening call, using the same stream, to one of the file positioning functions ((fseek) 3, fsetpos(3), or rewind(3)) will discard the pushed back characters.

One character of push-back is guaranteed, but as long as there is sufficient memory, an effectively infinite amount of pushback is allowed.

If a character is successfully pushed-back, the end-of-file indicator for the stream is cleared. The file-position indicator is decremented by each successful call to ungetc(); if its value was 0 before a call, its value is unspecified after the call.

Return values

The ungetc() function returns the character pushed-back after the conversion, or EOF if the operation fails. If the value of the argument c character equals EOF, the operation will fail and the stream will remain unchanged.

Releases

87 releases since FreeBSD 2.0.5-RELEASE; the text changed 41 times.

  1. 2.0.5–2.1.7.1
  2. 2.2.2–3.4
  3. 3.5–3.5.1
  4. 4.0
  5. 4.1–4.2
  6. 4.3
  7. 4.4
  8. 4.5–4.11
  9. 5.0–6.3
  10. 6.4
  11. 7.0
  12. 7.1
  13. 7.2
  14. 7.3
  15. 7.4
  16. 8.0
  17. 8.1
  18. 8.2
  19. 8.3
  20. 8.4
  21. 9.0
  22. 9.1
  23. 9.2
  24. 9.3
  25. 10.0
  26. 10.1
  27. 10.2
  28. 10.3
  29. 10.4
  30. 11.0
  31. 11.1
  32. 11.2
  33. 11.3
  34. 11.4
  35. 12.0
  36. 12.1
  37. 12.2
  38. 12.3
  39. 12.4
  40. 13.0–13.2
  41. 13.3–14.5
  42. 15.0–16.0

Standards

The ungetc() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9899:1990 (“ISO C90”).

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.