.TH WRITE 2 .SH NAME write \- write a sequence of characters from a buffer .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .B int write(dev, buff, count) .B int dev; .B char *buff; .B int count; .SH DESCRIPTION .I Write writes .I count characters to the I/O device given by .I dev, from sequential locations of the buffer, .I buff. .I Write returns SYSERR if .I dev or .I count is invalid, OK for a successful write. Write normally returns when it is safe for the user to change the contents of the buffer. For some devices this means write will wait for I/O to complete before returning. On other devices, the data is copied into a kernel buffer and the write returns while it is being transferred. .SH SEE ALSO close(2), control(2), getc(2), open(2), putc(2), read(2), seek(2) .SH BUGS Write may not have exclusive use of the I/O device, so output from other processes may be mixed in.