Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1946669AbdDYLOj (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Apr 2017 07:14:39 -0400 Received: from mail-wm0-f68.google.com ([74.125.82.68]:36626 "EHLO mail-wm0-f68.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1946635AbdDYLOc (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Apr 2017 07:14:32 -0400 Cc: mtk.manpages@gmail.com, Jeff Layton , lkml , Linux API , linux-man To: David Howells From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" Subject: Revised statx(2) man page for review Message-ID: Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 13:14:26 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 15709 Lines: 368 Hello David, et al., I merged your statx(2) page, and edited somewhat heavily. (The merged page source has been pushed to Git.) Could you please carefully review the text below, in case I added any errors. There is one question in a FIXME below. Could you please take a look at that also. Your proposed page duplicated a lot of content from stat(2). I like to avoid such redundancy, so I move the common pieces into a new page, inode(7), and reworked stat(2) and statx(2). Cheers, Michael NAME statx - get file status (extended) SYNOPSIS #include #include #include #include /* Definition of AT_* constants */ int statx(int dirfd, const char *pathname, int flags, unsigned int mask, struct statx *buf); Note: There is no glibc wrapper for renameat2(); see NOTES. DESCRIPTION This function returns information about a file, storing it in the buffer pointed to by buf. The returned buffer is a struc‐ ture of the following type: struct statx { __u32 stx_mask; /* Mask of bits indicating filled fields */ __u32 stx_blksize; /* Block size for filesystem I/O */ __u64 stx_attributes; /* Extra file attribute indicators */ __u32 stx_nlink; /* Number of hard links */ __u32 stx_uid; /* User ID of owner */ __u32 stx_gid; /* Group ID of owner */ __u16 stx_mode; /* File type and mode */ __u64 stx_ino; /* Inode number */ __u64 stx_size; /* Total size in bytes */ __u64 stx_blocks; /* Number of 512B blocks allocated */ /* The following fields are file timestamps */ struct statx_timestamp stx_atime; /* Last access */ struct statx_timestamp stx_btime; /* Creation */ struct statx_timestamp stx_ctime; /* Last status change */ struct statx_timestamp stx_mtime; /* Last modification */ /* If this file represents a device, then the next two fields contain the ID of the device */ __u32 stx_rdev_major; /* Major ID */ __u32 stx_rdev_minor; /* Minor ID */ /* The next two fields contain the ID of the device containing the filesystem where the file resides */ __u32 stx_dev_major; /* Major ID */ __u32 stx_dev_minor; /* Minor ID */ }; The file timestamps are structures of the following type: struct statx_timestamp { __s64 tv_sec; /* Seconds since the Epoch (UNIX time) */ __s32 tv_nsec; /* Nanoseconds before or since tv_sec */ }; (Note that reserved space and padding is omitted.) Invoking statx(): To access a file's status, no permissions are required on the file itself, but in the case of statx() with a pathname, exe‐ cute (search) permission is required on all of the directories in pathname that lead to the file. statx() uses pathname, dirfd, and flags identify the target file in one of the following ways: An absolute pathname If pathname begins with a slash, then it is an absolute pathname that identifies the target file. In this case, dirfd is ignored. A relative pathname If pathname is a string that begins with a character other than a slash and dirfd is AT_FDCWD, then pathname is a relative pathname that is interpreted relative to the process's current working directory. A pathname interpreted relative to a directory file descriptor If pathname is a string that begins with a character other than a slash and dirfd is a file descriptor that refers to a directory, then pathname is a relative path‐ name that is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by dirfd. By file descriptor If pathname is NULL, then the target file is the one referred to by the file descriptor dirfd. dirfd may refer to any type of file, not just a directory. (The AT_EMPTY_PATH flag described below provides similar functionality.) ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │FIXME │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │It appears that there are two different ways of │ │doing the same thing: specifying the file to be │ │stat'ed via a file descriptor. Either, we specify │ │'pathname' as NULL, or we specify 'pathname' as an │ │empty string and include the AT_EMPTY_PATH flag. │ │What's the rationale for having two ways of doing │ │this? │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ flags can be used to influence a pathname-based lookup. A value for flags is constructed by ORing together zero or more of the following constants: AT_EMPTY_PATH If pathname is an empty string, operate on the file referred to by dirfd (which may have been obtained using the open(2) O_PATH flag). If dirfd is AT_FDCWD, the call operates on the current working directory. In this case, dirfd can refer to any type of file, not just a directory. This flag is Linux-specific; define _GNU_SOURCE to obtain its definition. AT_NO_AUTOMOUNT Don't automount the terminal ("basename") component of pathname if it is a directory that is an automount point. This allows the caller to gather attributes of an automount point (rather than the location it would mount). This flag can be used in tools that scan direc‐ tories to prevent mass-automounting of a directory of automount points. The AT_NO_AUTOMOUNT flag has no effect if the mount point has already been mounted over. This flag is Linux-specific; define _GNU_SOURCE to obtain its definition. AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW If pathname is a symbolic link, do not dereference it: instead return information about the link itself, like lstat(2). flags can also be used to control what sort of synchronization the kernel will do when querying a file on a remote filesystem. This is done by ORing in one of the following values: AT_STATX_SYNC_AS_STAT Do whatever stat(2) does. This is the default and is very much filesystem specific. AT_STATX_FORCE_SYNC Force the attributes to be synchronized with the server. This may require that a network filesystem perform a data writeback to get the timestamps correct. AT_STATX_DONT_SYNC Don't synchronize anything, but rather just take what‐ ever the system has cached if possible. This may mean that the information returned is approximate, but, on a network filesystem, it may not involve a round trip to the server - even if no lease is held. The mask argument to statx() is used to tell the kernel which fields the caller is interested in. mask is an ORed combina‐ tion of the following constants: STATX_TYPE Want stx_mode & S_IFMT STATX_MODE Want stx_mode & ~S_IFMT STATX_NLINK Want stx_nlink STATX_UID Want stx_uid STATX_GID Want stx_gid STATX_ATIME Want stx_atime STATX_MTIME Want stx_mtime STATX_CTIME Want stx_ctime STATX_INO Want stx_ino STATX_SIZE Want stx_size STATX_BLOCKS Want stx_blocks STATX_BASIC_STATS [All of the above] STATX_BTIME Want stx_btime STATX_ALL [All currently available fields] Note the kernel does not reject values in mask other than the above. Instead, it simply informs the caller which values are supported by this kernel and filesystem via the statx.stx_mask field. Therefore, do not simply set mask to UINT_MAX (all bits set), as one or more bits may, in the future, be used to spec‐ ify an extension to the buffer. The returned information The status information for the target file is returned in the statx structure pointed to by buf. Included in this is stx_mask which indicates what other information has been returned. stx_mask has the same format as the mask argument and bits are set in it to indicate which fields have been filled in. It should be noted that the kernel may return fields that weren't requested and may fail to return fields that were requested, depending on what the backing filesystem supports. In either case, stx_mask will not be equal mask. If a filesystem does not support a field or if it has an unrep‐ resentable value (for instance, a file with an exotic type), then the mask bit corresponding to that field will be cleared in stx_mask even if the user asked for it and a dummy value will be filled in for compatibility purposes if one is avail‐ able (e.g., a dummy UID and GID may be specified to mount under some circumstances). A filesystem may also fill in fields that the caller didn't ask for if it has values for them available and the information is available at no extra cost. If this happens, the corresponding bits will be set in stx_mask. Note: for performance and simplicity reasons, different fields in the statx structure may contain state information from dif‐ ferent moments during the execution of the system call. For example, if stx_mode or stx_uid is changed by another process by calling chmod(2) or chown(2), stat() might return the old stx_mode together with the new stx_uid, or the old stx_uid together with the new stx_mode. Apart from stx_mask (which is described above), the fields in the statx structure are: stx_mode The file type and mode. See inode(7) for details. stx_size The size of the file (if it is a regular file or a sym‐ bolic link) in bytes. The size of a symbolic link is the length of the pathname it contains, without a termi‐ nating null byte. stx_blocks The number of blocks allocated to the file on the medium, in 512-byte units. (This may be smaller than stx_size/512 when the file has holes.) stx_blksize The "preferred" block size for efficient filesystem I/O. (Writing to a file in smaller chunks may cause an inef‐ ficient read-modify-rewrite.) stx_nlink The number of hard links on a file. stx_uid The user ID of the file's owner. stx_gid The ID of the group that may access the file. stx_dev_major and stx_dev_minor The device on which this file (inode) resides. stx_rdev_major and stx_rdev_minor The device that this file (inode) represents if the file is of block or character device type. stx_attributes Further status information about the file (see below for more information). stx_atime The file's last access timestamp. stx_btime The file's creation timestamp. stx_ctime The file's last status change timestamp. stx_mtime The file's last modification timestamp. For further information on the above fields, see inode(7). File attributes The stx_attributes field contains a set of ORed flags that indicate additional attributes of the file: STATX_ATTR_COMPRESSED The file is compressed by the fs and may take extra resources to access. STATX_ATTR_IMMUTABLE The file cannot be modified: it cannot be deleted or renamed, no hard links can be created to this file and no data can be written to it. See chattr(1). STATX_ATTR_APPEND The file can only be opened in append mode for writing. Random access writing is not permitted. See chattr(1). STATX_ATTR_NODUMP File is not a candidate for backup when a backup program such as dump(8) is run. See chattr(1). STATX_ATTR_ENCRYPTED A key is required for the file to be encrypted by the filesystem. RETURN VALUE On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately. ERRORS EACCES Search permission is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix of pathname. (See also path_resolu‐ tion(7).) EBADF dirfd is not a valid open file descriptor. EFAULT Bad address. EINVAL Invalid flag specified in flags. ELOOP Too many symbolic links encountered while traversing the pathname. ENAMETOOLONG pathname is too long. ENOENT A component of pathname does not exist, or pathname is an empty string and AT_EMPTY_PATH was not specified in flags. ENOMEM Out of memory (i.e., kernel memory). ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix of pathname is not a directory or pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory. VERSIONS statx() was added to Linux in kernel 4.11. CONFORMING TO statx() is Linux specific. NOTES Glibc does not (yet) provide a wrapper for the statx() system call; call it using syscall(2). SEE ALSO ls(1), stat(1), access(2), chmod(2), chown(2), stat(2), read‐ link(2), utime(2), capabilities(7), inode(7), symlink(7) -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/