NAME

usleep — suspend execution for interval of microseconds

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int
usleep(useconds_t microseconds);

DESCRIPTION

The usleep() function suspends execution of the calling process until either the number of microseconds specified by microseconds have elapsed or a signal is delivered to the calling process and its action is to invoke a signal catching function or to terminate the process. The suspension time may be longer than requested due to the scheduling of other activity by the system.

The microseconds argument must be less than 1,000,000. If the value of microseconds is 0, then the call has no effect.

RETURN VALUES

On successful completion, usleep() returns 0. Otherwise, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The usleep() function may fail if:

[EINVAL]

The microseconds interval specified 1,000,000 or more microseconds.

SEE ALSO

nanosleep(2), sleep(3)

STANDARDS

The usleep() function conforms to X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (“XPG4.2”). It later appeared in the POSIX standard, but in IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 (“POSIX.1”) it was marked as legacy and the use of nanosleep(2) was recommended instead. The IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) revision removed usleep() from the specification.

HISTORY

The usleep() function appeared in 4.3BSD.