inotify_init(2) — Linux manual page

inotify_init(2)            System Calls Manual           inotify_init(2)

NAME

       inotify_init, inotify_init1 - initialize an inotify instance

LIBRARY

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/inotify.h>

       int inotify_init(void);
       int inotify_init1(int flags);

DESCRIPTION

       For an overview of the inotify API, see inotify(7).

       inotify_init() initializes a new inotify instance and returns a
       file descriptor associated with a new inotify event queue.

       If flags is 0, then inotify_init1() is the same as
       inotify_init().  The following values can be bitwise ORed in
       flags to obtain different behavior:

       IN_NONBLOCK
              Set the O_NONBLOCK file status flag on the open file
              description (see open(2)) referred to by the new file
              descriptor.  Using this flag saves extra calls to fcntl(2)
              to achieve the same result.

       IN_CLOEXEC
              Set the close-on-exec (FD_CLOEXEC) flag on the new file
              descriptor.  See the description of the O_CLOEXEC flag in
              open(2) for reasons why this may be useful.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, these system calls return a new file descriptor.  On
       error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       EINVAL (inotify_init1()) An invalid value was specified in flags.

       EMFILE The user limit on the total number of inotify instances
              has been reached.

       EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file
              descriptors has been reached.

       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files
              has been reached.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory is available.

STANDARDS

       Linux.

HISTORY

       inotify_init()
              Linux 2.6.13, glibc 2.4.

       inotify_init1()
              Linux 2.6.27, glibc 2.9.

SEE ALSO

       inotify_add_watch(2), inotify_rm_watch(2), inotify(7)

COLOPHON

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                inotify_init(2)

Pages that refer to this page: inotify_add_watch(2), inotify_rm_watch(2), syscalls(2), proc_pid_fd(5), inotify(7)

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