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ulimit(3) Library Functions Manual ulimit(3) NAME ulimit - Sets and gets process limits LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc.so, libc.a) SYNOPSIS #include <ulimit.h> long int ulimit ( int command, ... ); STANDARDS Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan- dards as follows: ulimit(): XPG4, XPG4-UNIX Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about in- dustry standards and associated tags. PARAMETERS Specifies the form of control. The command parameter can have the fol- lowing values: Returns the soft file size limit of the process. The limit is reported in 512-byte blocks (see the sys/param.h file) and is inherited by child processes. The function can read files of any size. [XPG4-UNIX] The return value is the integer part of the soft file size limit divided by 512. If the result cannot be repre- sented as a long int, the result is unspecified. Sets the hard and soft process file size limit for output operations to the value of the second parameter, taken as a long int value, and returns the new file size limit. Any process can decrease its own hard limit, but only a process with superuser privileges can increase the limit. [XPG4-UNIX] The hard and soft file size limits are set to the specified value multiplied by 512. If the result would overflow an rlim_t, the actual value set is unspecified. [Digital] Re- turns the maximum possible break value as described in the brk(2) reference page. DESCRIPTION The ulimit() function controls process limits. During access to remote files, the process limits of the local node are used. NOTES The ulimit() function is implemented with calls to setrlimit(). The two interfaces should not be used in the same program. The result of doing so is undefined. RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, ulimit() returns the value of the requested limit and does not change the setting of errno. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS If the ulimit() function fails, the limit remains unchanged and errno is set to one of the following values: The command parameter is in- valid. A process without appropriate system privileges attempted to increase its file size limit. As all return values are permissable in a successful situation, an ap- plication wishing to check for error situations should set errno to 0, then call ulimit(), and, if it returns -1, check to see if errno is nonzero. RELATED INFORMATION Commands: ulimit(1) Functions: brk(2), getrlimit(2), write(2) Routines: pathconf(2) Standards: standards(5) delim off ulimit(3)