pcap_file(3PCAP) man page

pcap_file(3PCAP) man page

Updated: 6 September 2026 • View in plain text • Return to Main Contents

NAME

pcap_file - get the standard I/O stream for a savefile being read

SYNOPSIS

#include <pcap/pcap.h>

FILE *pcap_file(pcap_t *p);

DESCRIPTION

pcap_file() returns the standard I/O stream of the savefile'', if asavefile'' was opened with pcap_open_offline(3PCAP), or a null pointer, if a network device was opened with pcap_create(3PCAP) and pcap_activate(3PCAP), or with pcap_open_live(3PCAP).

Note that the Packet Capture library is usually built with large file support, so the standard I/O stream of the ``savefile'' might refer to a file larger than 2 gigabytes; applications that use pcap_file() should, if possible, use calls that support large files on the return value of pcap_file() or the value returned by fileno(3) when passed the return value of pcap_file().

SEE ALSO

pcap(3PCAP)

COLOPHON

This HTML man page was generated at 15:15:20 GMT, September 13, 2026 from a source man page in “The Tcpdump Group” git repositories using man2html and other tools.