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 de-
scriptor 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 behav-
ior:
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 descrip-
tor. 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)
Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 inotify_init(2)
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