fgets(3)

💖 fgets(3) — the "get a whole line, bestie" situation 💖

okay so real talk: this is fgets from the Standard C library (libc, -lc), and it's literally the moment your girl stops nibbling characters one at a time and just gets a line. FILE get line-string. that's the whole name. iconic. 💅

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <stdio.h>

char *fgets(int size;
            char s[restrict size], int size, FILE *restrict stream);

like yes that's the signature exactly as it is, i'm not touching it, my hands are OFF it 🫶

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay bestie listen. fgets() reads in at most one less than size characters from stream, and it stashes them into the buffer that s points at. the <hotpink>one less than</hotpink> part is NOT a typo, it's for the null byte, we'll get there.

the reading stops after:

• an EOF, or
• a newline 🌈

and here's the slay: if a newline is read, it gets stored into the buffer. it's not thrown away. it's coming with us. periodt.

then, after the last character in the buffer, a terminating null byte ('\0') is stored. that's your little bow on top 🎀

---

💫 RETURN VALUE 💫

• on success, fgets() returns s. like, it hands you back your own buffer. cute.
• when end of file happens and no characters have been read, NULL is returned. no vibes. empty. 😭
• on error, NULL is returned and errno is set to tell you what went down.

so if you get NULL, you gotta check: was it EOF or was it an actual error? don't assume, bestie, go look at errno 💀

---

🔥 ERRORS 🔥

see fgetc(3). that's where the error lore lives, we don't duplicate it here, iykyk.

---

🧚 ATTRIBUTES 🧚

for what all these terms even mean, see attributes(7). the table said:

• fgets() — Thread safety — MT-Safe ✨

translation: she's MT-Safe. multiple threads can vibe with her at once, no cap. ⭐

---

👑 STANDARDS 👑

C11, POSIX.1-2008.

---

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

POSIX.1-2001, C89. she's been here a minute, she's a veteran, she ate. 👑

---

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• ferror(3)
• fgetc(3)
• fgetws(3)
• fopen(3)
• fread(3)
• getline(3)
• unlocked_stdio(3)

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 this was Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-08-19, and yes it's the fgets(3) page, go read your file, go touch some bytes, go be the main character of your own stream 🫶✨🌸