fclosef

Fclosef is a non-standard extension found in some C libraries and codebases as an alternative to the standard fclose. It is not part of the ISO C standard and portable programs should not assume its existence. When present, fclosef is intended to close a FILE* stream and release resources associated with the stream, typically performing the same buffer flush and system calls as fclose. In practice, implementations vary: some define int fclosef(FILE *stream); others may map fclosef to fclose, or implement additional cleanup.

Return values and error reporting are similarly library-specific. In the common pattern that follows the standard, a successful close returns zero and a failure returns a nonzero value (or EOF). On error, errno may be set to indicate the cause (such as EBADF or EIO).

Usage notes: If your code relies on fclosef, you should provide alternative implementations or checks to ensure portability across platforms that lack the symbol. In most cases, using fclose and proper error handling is sufficient.

Examples of environments with fclosef include some embedded C libraries or historical codebases where wrappers were introduced for clarity or to integrate with a logging framework.

See also: fclose, FILE, stdio.