NAME

sem_post – unlock a semaphore  

SYNOPSIS

#include <semaphore.h>

int sem_post(sem_t *sem);

Link with -pthread.  

DESCRIPTION

sem_post() increments (unlocks) the semaphore pointed to by sem. If the semaphore’s value consequently becomes greater than zero, then another process or thread blocked in a sem_wait(3) call will be woken up and proceed to lock the semaphore.  

RETURN VALUE

sem_post() returns 0 on success; on error, the value of the semaphore is left unchanged, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.  

ERRORS

EINVAL
sem is not a valid semaphore.
EOVERFLOW
The maximum allowable value for a semaphore would be exceeded.
 

ATTRIBUTES

 

Multithreading (see pthreads(7))

The sem_post() function is thread-safe.  

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001.  

NOTES

sem_post() is async-signal-safe: it may be safely called within a signal handler.  

EXAMPLE

See sem_wait(3).  

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Willie has over 15 years of experience in Linux system administration and DevOps. After managing infrastructure for startups and enterprises alike, he founded Command Linux to share the practical knowledge he wished he had when starting out. He oversees content strategy and contributes guides on server management, automation, and security.