.TH ACCT 2 
.UC
.SH NAME
acct \- turn accounting on or off
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B acct(file)
.br
.B char *file;
.SH DESCRIPTION
The system is prepared to write a record
in an accounting
.I file
for each process as it terminates.
This
call, with a null-terminated string naming an existing file
as argument, turns on accounting;
records for each terminating process are appended to
.IR file .
.I File
must already exist.
An argument of 0 causes accounting to be turned off.
.PP
The accounting file format is given in
.IR acct (5).
.PP
This call is permitted only to the super-user.
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value
of \-1 is returned and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.I Acct
will fail if one of the following is true:
.TP 20
[EPERM]
The caller is not the super-user.
.TP 20
[EINVAL]
The path name contains a non-ASCII byte.
.TP 20
[ENOTDIR]
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.TP 20
[ENOENT]
The named file does not exist.
.TP 20
[EISDIR]
The named file is a directory.
.TP 20
[EROFS]
The named file resides on a read-only file system.
.TP 20
[EFAULT]
.I File
points outside the process's allocated address space.
.TP 20
[ELOOP]
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the path name.
.TP 20
[EACCES]
.I File
is not a regular file.
.TP 20
[EBUSY]
An attempt is made to turn on accounting when it is already on.
.SH BUGS
No accounting is produced for programs running
when a crash occurs.
In particular nonterminating programs are never
accounted for.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
acct(5), sa(8)
.SH ASSEMBLER
(acct = 51.)
.br
.B sys acct; file