Tribblix: manual page: lio

LIO_LISTIO(3C) Standard C Library Functions LIO_LISTIO(3C)

NAME

lio_listio - list directed I/O

SYNOPSIS

#include <aio.h>

int lio_listio(int mode, struct aiocb *restrict const list[],
int nent, struct sigevent *restrict sig);

DESCRIPTION

The lio_listio() function allows the calling process, LWP, or thread,
to initiate a list of I/O requests within a single function call.

The mode argument takes one of the values LIO_WAIT or LIO_NOWAIT
declared in <aio.h> and determines whether the function returns when
the I/O operations have been completed, or as soon as the operations
have been queued. If the mode argument is LIO_WAIT, the function
waits until all I/O is complete and the sig argument is ignored.

If the mode argument is LIO_NOWAIT, the function returns immediately,
and asynchronous notification occurs, according to the sig argument,
when all the I/O operations complete. If sig is NULL, no asynchronous
notification occurs. If sig is not NULL, asynchronous notification
occurs as specified in signal.h(3HEAD) when all the requests in list
have completed.

The I/O requests enumerated by list are submitted in an unspecified
order.

The list argument is an array of pointers to aiocb structures. The
array contains nent elements. The array may contain null elements,
which are ignored.

The aio_lio_opcode field of each aiocb structure specifies the
operation to be performed. The supported operations are LIO_READ,
LIO_WRITE, and LIO_NOP; these symbols are defined in <aio.h>. The
LIO_NOP operation causes the list entry to be ignored. If the
aio_lio_opcode element is equal to LIO_READ, then an I/O operation is
submitted as if by a call to aio_read(3C) with the aiocbp equal to
the address of the aiocb structure. If the aio_lio_opcode element is
equal to LIO_WRITE, then an I/O operation is submitted as if by a
call to aio_write(3C) with the aiocbp equal to the address of the
aiocb structure.

The aio_fildes member specifies the file descriptor on which the
operation is to be performed.

The aio_buf member specifies the address of the buffer to or from
which the data is to be transferred.

The aio_nbytes member specifies the number of bytes of data to be
transferred.

The members of the aiocb structure further describe the I/O operation
to be performed, in a manner identical to that of the corresponding
aiocb structure when used by the aio_read(3C) and aio_write(3C)
functions.

The nent argument specifies how many elements are members of the
list, that is, the length of the array.

The behavior of this function is altered according to the definitions
of synchronized I/O data integrity completion and synchronized I/O
file integrity completion if synchronized I/O is enabled on the file
associated with aio_fildes. See fcntl.h(3HEAD) definitions of O_DSYNC
and O_SYNC.

For regular files, no data transfer will occur past the offset
maximum established in the open file description associated with
aiocbp->aio_fildes.

RETURN VALUES

If the mode argument has the value LIO_NOWAIT, and the I/O
operations are successfully queued, lio_listio() returns 0;
otherwise, it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

If the mode argument has the value LIO_WAIT, and all the indicated
I/O has completed successfully, lio_listio() returns 0; otherwise,
it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

In either case, the return value only indicates the success or
failure of the lio_listio() call itself, not the status of the
individual I/O requests. In some cases, one or more of the I/O
requests contained in the list may fail. Failure of an individual
request does not prevent completion of any other individual request.
To determine the outcome of each I/O request, the application must
examine the error status associated with each aiocb control block.
Each error status so returned is identical to that returned as a
result of an aio_read(3C) or aio_write(3C) function.

ERRORS

The lio_listio() function will fail if:

EAGAIN
The resources necessary to queue all the I/O requests were
not available. The error status for each request is
recorded in the aio_error member of the corresponding aiocb
structure, and can be retrieved using aio_error(3C).

EAGAIN
The number of entries indicated by nent would cause the
system-wide limit AIO_MAX to be exceeded.

EINVAL
The mode argument is an improper value, or the value of
nent is greater than AIO_LISTIO_MAX.

EINTR
A signal was delivered while waiting for all I/O requests
to complete during an LIO_WAIT operation. Note that, since
each I/O operation invoked by lio_listio() may possibly
provoke a signal when it completes, this error return may
be caused by the completion of one (or more) of the very
I/O operations being awaited. Outstanding I/O requests are
not canceled, and the application can use aio_fsync(3C) to
determine if any request was initiated; aio_return(3C) to
determine if any request has completed; or aio_error(3C) to
determine if any request was canceled.

EIO
One or more of the individual I/O operations failed. The
application can use aio_error(3C) to check the error status
for each aiocb structure to determine the individual
request(s) that failed.

In addition to the errors returned by the lio_listio() function, if
the lio_listio() function succeeds or fails with errors of EAGAIN,
EINTR, or EIO, then some of the I/O specified by the list may have
been initiated. If the lio_listio() function fails with an error code
other than EAGAIN, EINTR, or EIO, no operations from the list have
been initiated. The I/O operation indicated by each list element can
encounter errors specific to the individual read or write function
being performed. In this event, the error status for each aiocb
control block contains the associated error code. The error codes
that can be set are the same as would be set by a read(2) or write(2)
function, with the following additional error codes possible:

EAGAIN
The requested I/O operation was not queued due to
resource limitations.

ECANCELED
The requested I/O was canceled before the I/O
completed due to an explicit aio_cancel(3C) request.

EFBIG
The aiocbp->aio_lio_opcode is LIO_WRITE, the file is a
regular file, aiocbp->aio_nbytes is greater than 0,
and the aiocbp->aio_offset is greater than or equal to
the offset maximum in the open file description
associated with aiocbp->aio_fildes.

EINPROGRESS
The requested I/O is in progress.

EOVERFLOW
The aiocbp->aio_lio_opcode is LIO_READ, the file is a
regular file, aiocbp->aio_nbytes is greater than 0,
and the aiocbp->aio_offset is before the end-of-file
and is greater than or equal to the offset maximum in
the open file description associated with
aiocbp->aio_fildes.

USAGE

The lio_listio() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit
file offsets. See lf64(7).

ATTRIBUTES