ACCT(2)             Linux Programmer's Manual             ACCT(2)

NAME
       acct - switch process accounting on or off

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int acct(const char *filename);

DESCRIPTION
       When called with the name of an existing file as argument,
       accounting is turned on, records for each terminating pro-
       cess  are appended to filename as it terminates.  An argu-
       ment of NULL causes accounting to be turned off.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1  is  returned,
       and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
       ENOSYS  BSD  process  accounting has not been enabled when
               the operating system  kernel  was  compiled.   The
               kernel  configuration  parameter  controlling this
               feature is CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT.

       ENOMEM  Out of memory.

       EPERM   The calling process has no  permission  to  enable
               process accounting.

       EACCESS The argument filename is not a regular file.

       EIO     Error writing to the file filename.

       EUSERS  There  are  no more free file structures or we run
               out of memory.

CONFORMING TO
       SVr4 (but  not  POSIX).   SVr4  documents  EACCES,  EBUSY,
       EFAULT,  ELOOP,  ENAMETOOLONG,  ENOTDIR, ENOENT, EPERM and
       EROFS error conditions, but no ENOSYS.

NOTES
       No accounting is produced  for  programs  running  when  a
       crash occurs.  In particular, nonterminating processes are
       never accounted for.

Linux 2.1.126            4 November 1998                        1