getsockname(2)

✨ getsockname(2) ✨

okay so bestie, this is the getsockname page from the System Calls Manual — section 2, system calls, iykyk 💅. It's the one that tells you what name your socket is currently wearing. Let's get into it 🫶

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🎀 NAME 🎀

getsockname — get socket name ✨

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📚 LIBRARY 📚

Standard C library (libc, -lc) — she lives in libc, no cap 💖

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <sys/socket.h>

int getsockname(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *restrict addr,
                socklen_t *restrict addrlen);

there she is 👑 note those restrict qualifiers, they're doing real work, we respect them 🙏

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so getsockname() returns the current address that the socket sockfd is bound to, and it drops it into the buffer pointed at by addr. it's giving "who am I, really" ✨

The addrlen argument? You gotta initialize it yourself to say how much space (in bytes) you've got at the address pointed to by addr. Then, on return, it holds the actual size of the socket address — so it may come back different than you sent it. main character energy, honestly 💅

So the returned address gets truncated if the buffer you handed over is too small. And in that case, addrlen will return a value greater than what you supplied to the call — that's how you know you got cut off 😭 plan your buffer accordingly babes.

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🔥 RETURN VALUE 🔥

• On success: zero is returned. slay ✨
• On error: -1 is returned, and errno gets set to tell you which error it was. not the vibe 💀

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💅 ERRORS 💅

• EBADF — the sockfd argument is not a valid file descriptor 🙈
• EFAULT — the addr argument points to memory that isn't in a valid part of the process address space. off the map, literally 🗺️💀
• EINVAL — addrlen is invalid, like for example it's negative. girl. negative bytes?? 😭
• ENOBUFS — insufficient resources were available in the system to perform the operation 🥲 the system was simply not serving today
• ENOTSOCK — the file descriptor sockfd does not refer to a socket. it's giving impostor 🫠

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🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

POSIX.1-2024. periodt 💜

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.2BSD. she's been around, she's iconic, she's seen things 👑

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🍓 SEE ALSO 🍓

bind(2), socket(2), getifaddrs(3), ip(7), socket(7), unix(7)

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and that's the whole page bestie, go check your socket's name, she deserves to be seen 🌸 know your bind, own your bind 💖

this has been Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2025-10-29 — mwah, sending you the biggest hug, now go read bind(2) next, mwah 💋✨