inotify_init()
Initialize the inode notify system
Synopsis:
#include <sys/inotify.h>
int inotify_init( void );
Library:
libfsnotify
Use the -l fsnotify option to qcc to link against this library.
Description:
The inotify_init() function initializes the inode notify system that you can use to watch for filesystem events.
The basic steps for using the inotify system are as follows:
- Initialize the inotify system by calling inotify_init(), saving the file descriptor that it returns.
- Use inotify_add_watch() to add or modify a watch for a given file or directory.
- Read the filesystem events (of type struct inotify_event) from the file descriptor returned by inotify_init().
- To remove a watch, call inotify_rm_watch().
- To remove all watches and shut down inotify, close the file descriptor returned by inotify_init().
While the QNX OS inotify implementation follows the same semantics as the Linux implementation, the behavior differs from Linux due to the kernel and filesystem models employed.
For an overview of inotify, see http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8478?page=0,0 in the Linux Journal, but note that there are differences between the Linux and QNX OS implementations. Currently, only io-blk.so-based filesystems and devf-ram-based filesystems support inotify.
Returns:
A file descriptor for the inotify mailbox, or -1 if an error occurred (errno is set).
Environment variables:
- FSNOTIFY_PREFIX
- Locate the filesystem event manager, fsevmgr. You can set the FSNOTIFY_PREFIX environment variable for the fsevmgr, and any filesystems and client programs that use inotify must set this environment variable with the same value.
Classification:
| Safety: | |
|---|---|
| Cancellation point | No |
| Signal handler | No |
| Thread | Yes |