SetEndOfFile function (fileapi.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Sets the physical file size for the specified file to the current position of the file pointer.

The physical file size is also referred to as the end of the file. The SetEndOfFile function can be used to truncate or extend a file. To set the logical end of a file, use the SetFileValidData function.

Syntax

BOOL SetEndOfFile(
  [in] HANDLE hFile
);

Parameters

[in] hFile

A handle to the file to be extended or truncated.

The file handle must be created with the GENERIC_WRITE access right. For more information, see File Security and Access Rights.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.

If the function fails, the return value is zero (0). To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

The SetEndOfFile function can be used to truncate or extend a file. If the file is extended, the contents of the file between the old end of the file and the new end of the file are not defined.

Each file stream has the following:

File size: the size of the data in a file, to the byte.
Allocation size: the size of the space that is allocated for a file on a disk, which is always an even multiple of the cluster size.
Valid data length: the length of the data in a file that is actually written, to the byte. This value is always less than or equal to the file size.

The SetEndOfFile function sets the file size. Use SetFileValidData to set the valid data length.

If
CreateFileMapping is called to create a file mapping object for hFile, UnmapViewOfFile must be called first to unmap all views and call CloseHandle to close the file mapping object before you can call SetEndOfFile.

Transacted Operations

If there is a transaction bound to the handle, then the change in the end-of-file position is transacted.

In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies.

Technology	Supported
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol	Yes
SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO)	Yes
SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO)	Yes
Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS)	Yes
Resilient File System (ReFS)	Yes

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps \| UWP apps]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps \| UWP apps]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	fileapi.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll

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