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fea681da | 1 | .\" Copyright 2003 Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@wiw.org> |
2297bf0e | 2 | .\" |
93015253 | 3 | .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM) |
fea681da MK |
4 | .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this |
5 | .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are | |
6 | .\" preserved on all copies. | |
7 | .\" | |
8 | .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this | |
9 | .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the | |
10 | .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a | |
11 | .\" permission notice identical to this one. | |
c13182ef | 12 | .\" |
fea681da MK |
13 | .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this |
14 | .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no | |
15 | .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from | |
16 | .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not | |
17 | .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, | |
18 | .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working | |
19 | .\" professionally. | |
c13182ef | 20 | .\" |
fea681da MK |
21 | .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by |
22 | .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. | |
4b72fb64 | 23 | .\" %%%LICENSE_END |
fea681da | 24 | .\" |
f21a10c8 | 25 | .\" 2005-04-08 mtk, noted kernel version and added BUGS |
dc30fdc6 | 26 | .\" 2010-10-09, mtk, document arm_fadvise64_64() |
f21a10c8 | 27 | .\" |
97986708 | 28 | .TH POSIX_FADVISE 2 2016-03-15 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual" |
fea681da MK |
29 | .SH NAME |
30 | posix_fadvise \- predeclare an access pattern for file data | |
31 | .SH SYNOPSIS | |
32 | .nf | |
33 | .B #include <fcntl.h> | |
34 | .sp | |
34e8ac03 MK |
35 | .BI "int posix_fadvise(int " fd ", off_t " offset ", off_t " len \ |
36 | ", int " advice ");" | |
fea681da | 37 | .fi |
9a30939e MK |
38 | .sp |
39 | .ad l | |
40 | .in -4n | |
41 | Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see | |
42 | .BR feature_test_macros (7)): | |
43 | .in | |
44 | .sp | |
45 | .BR posix_fadvise (): | |
46 | .RS 4 | |
a446ac0c | 47 | _POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200112L |
9a30939e MK |
48 | .RE |
49 | .ad | |
fea681da | 50 | .SH DESCRIPTION |
60a90ecd MK |
51 | Programs can use |
52 | .BR posix_fadvise () | |
53 | to announce an intention to access | |
fea681da | 54 | file data in a specific pattern in the future, thus allowing the kernel |
d9bfdb9c | 55 | to perform appropriate optimizations. |
fea681da MK |
56 | |
57 | The \fIadvice\fP applies to a (not necessarily existent) region starting | |
58 | at \fIoffset\fP and extending for \fIlen\fP bytes (or until the end of | |
c13182ef | 59 | the file if \fIlen\fP is 0) within the file referred to by \fIfd\fP. |
b265f7bb YK |
60 | The \fIadvice\fP is not binding; |
61 | it merely constitutes an expectation on behalf of | |
fea681da MK |
62 | the application. |
63 | ||
64 | Permissible values for \fIadvice\fP include: | |
65 | .TP | |
66 | .B POSIX_FADV_NORMAL | |
67 | Indicates that the application has no advice to give about its access | |
c13182ef MK |
68 | pattern for the specified data. |
69 | If no advice is given for an open file, | |
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70 | this is the default assumption. |
71 | .TP | |
72 | .B POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL | |
73 | The application expects to access the specified data sequentially (with | |
74 | lower offsets read before higher ones). | |
75 | .TP | |
76 | .B POSIX_FADV_RANDOM | |
77 | The specified data will be accessed in random order. | |
78 | .TP | |
79 | .B POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE | |
80 | The specified data will be accessed only once. | |
a6b80261 MK |
81 | |
82 | In kernels before 2.6.18, \fBPOSIX_FADV_NOREUSE\fP had the | |
83 | same semantics as \fBPOSIX_FADV_WILLNEED\fP. | |
84 | This was probably a bug; since kernel 2.6.18, this flag is a no-op. | |
fea681da MK |
85 | .TP |
86 | .B POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED | |
87 | The specified data will be accessed in the near future. | |
a6b80261 MK |
88 | |
89 | \fBPOSIX_FADV_WILLNEED\fP initiates a | |
90 | nonblocking read of the specified region into the page cache. | |
91 | The amount of data read may be decreased by the kernel depending | |
92 | on virtual memory load. | |
93 | (A few megabytes will usually be fully satisfied, | |
94 | and more is rarely useful.) | |
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95 | .TP |
96 | .B POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED | |
97 | The specified data will not be accessed in the near future. | |
a6b80261 MK |
98 | |
99 | \fBPOSIX_FADV_DONTNEED\fP attempts to free cached pages associated with | |
100 | the specified region. | |
101 | This is useful, for example, while streaming large | |
102 | files. | |
103 | A program may periodically request the kernel to free cached data | |
104 | that has already been used, so that more useful cached pages are not | |
105 | discarded instead. | |
106 | ||
107 | Requests to discard partial pages are ignored. | |
108 | It is preferable to preserve needed data than discard unneeded data. | |
109 | If the application requires that data be considered for discarding, then | |
110 | .I offset | |
111 | and | |
112 | .I len | |
113 | must be page-aligned. | |
114 | ||
115 | Pages that have not yet been written out will be unaffected, so if the | |
116 | application wishes to guarantee that pages will be released, it should | |
117 | call | |
118 | .BR fsync (2) | |
119 | or | |
120 | .BR fdatasync (2) | |
121 | first. | |
47297adb | 122 | .SH RETURN VALUE |
c13182ef | 123 | On success, zero is returned. |
b857d3da | 124 | On error, an error number is returned. |
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125 | .SH ERRORS |
126 | .TP | |
127 | .B EBADF | |
128 | The \fIfd\fP argument was not a valid file descriptor. | |
129 | .TP | |
130 | .B EINVAL | |
131 | An invalid value was specified for \fIadvice\fP. | |
132 | .TP | |
133 | .B ESPIPE | |
682edefb | 134 | The specified file descriptor refers to a pipe or FIFO. |
e0f1f176 MK |
135 | .RB ( ESPIPE |
136 | is the error specified by POSIX, | |
77483b7c | 137 | but before kernel version 2.6.16, |
e0f1f176 MK |
138 | .\" commit 87ba81dba431232548ce29d5d224115d0c2355ac |
139 | Linux returned | |
682edefb MK |
140 | .B EINVAL |
141 | in this case.) | |
a1d5f77c | 142 | .SH VERSIONS |
e049eee8 MK |
143 | Kernel support first appeared in Linux 2.5.60; |
144 | the underlying system call is called | |
145 | .BR fadvise64 (). | |
146 | .\" of fadvise64_64() | |
147 | Library support has been provided since glibc version 2.2, | |
148 | via the wrapper function | |
149 | .BR posix_fadvise (). | |
732df53e MK |
150 | |
151 | Since Linux 3.18, | |
152 | .\" commit d3ac21cacc24790eb45d735769f35753f5b56ceb | |
153 | support for the underlying system call is optional, | |
154 | depending on the setting of the | |
155 | .B CONFIG_ADVISE_SYSCALLS | |
156 | configuration option. | |
47297adb | 157 | .SH CONFORMING TO |
fc588289 | 158 | POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008. |
a1d5f77c MK |
159 | Note that the type of the |
160 | .I len | |
c4bb193f | 161 | argument was changed from |
a1d5f77c MK |
162 | .I size_t |
163 | to | |
164 | .I off_t | |
165 | in POSIX.1-2003 TC1. | |
166 | .SH NOTES | |
fea681da MK |
167 | Under Linux, \fBPOSIX_FADV_NORMAL\fP sets the readahead window to the |
168 | default size for the backing device; \fBPOSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL\fP doubles | |
169 | this size, and \fBPOSIX_FADV_RANDOM\fP disables file readahead entirely. | |
8c450534 | 170 | These changes affect the entire file, not just the specified region |
fea681da | 171 | (but other open file handles to the same file are unaffected). |
0722a578 | 172 | .SS C library/kernel differences |
a97b7078 MK |
173 | The name of the wrapper function in the C library is |
174 | .BR posix_fadvise (). | |
175 | The underlying system call is called | |
176 | .BR fadvise64 () | |
177 | (or, on some architectures, | |
178 | .BR fadvise64_64 ()). | |
63ec43ae MK |
179 | .SS Architecture-specific variants |
180 | Some architectures require | |
181 | 64-bit arguments to be aligned in a suitable pair of registers (see | |
182 | .BR syscall (2) | |
183 | for further detail). | |
184 | On such architectures, the call signature of | |
dc30fdc6 | 185 | .BR posix_fadvise () |
63ec43ae MK |
186 | shown in the SYNOPSIS would force |
187 | a register to be wasted as padding between the | |
dc30fdc6 MK |
188 | .I fd |
189 | and | |
500bd052 | 190 | .I offset |
dc30fdc6 | 191 | arguments. |
63ec43ae MK |
192 | Therefore, these architectures define a version of the |
193 | system call that orders the arguments suitably, | |
416d9876 | 194 | but is otherwise exactly the same as |
63ec43ae MK |
195 | .BR posix_fadvise (). |
196 | ||
197 | For example, since Linux 2.6.14, ARM has the following system call: | |
dc30fdc6 MK |
198 | .PP |
199 | .in +4n | |
200 | .nf | |
201 | .BI "long arm_fadvise64_64(int " fd ", int " advice , | |
503979fa | 202 | .BI " loff_t " offset ", loff_t " len ); |
dc30fdc6 MK |
203 | .fi |
204 | .in | |
205 | .PP | |
63ec43ae MK |
206 | These architecture-specific details are generally |
207 | hidden from applications by the glibc | |
208 | .BR posix_fadvise () | |
209 | wrapper function, | |
210 | which invokes the appropriate architecture-specific system call. | |
f21a10c8 | 211 | .SH BUGS |
c13182ef | 212 | In kernels before 2.6.6, if |
f21a10c8 MK |
213 | .I len |
214 | was specified as 0, then this was interpreted literally as "zero bytes", | |
215 | rather than as meaning "all bytes through to the end of the file". | |
47297adb | 216 | .SH SEE ALSO |
ef276d2f | 217 | .BR readahead (2), |