inotify_init(2)

1inotify_init(2)               System Calls Manual              inotify_init(2)
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NAME

6       inotify_init, inotify_init1 - initialize an inotify instance
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LIBRARY

9       Standard C library (libc, -lc)
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SYNOPSIS

12       #include <sys/inotify.h>
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14       int inotify_init(void);
15       int inotify_init1(int flags);
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DESCRIPTION

18       For an overview of the inotify API, see inotify(7).
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20       inotify_init()  initializes  a  new inotify instance and returns a file
21       descriptor associated with a new inotify event queue.
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23       If flags is 0, then inotify_init1() is the same as inotify_init().  The
24       following  values  can be bitwise ORed in flags to obtain different be‐
25       havior:
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27       IN_NONBLOCK
28              Set the O_NONBLOCK file status flag on the open file description
29              (see  open(2))  referred  to  by the new file descriptor.  Using
30              this flag saves extra calls to fcntl(2) to achieve the same  re‐
31              sult.
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33       IN_CLOEXEC
34              Set the close-on-exec (FD_CLOEXEC) flag on the new file descrip‐
35              tor.  See the description of the O_CLOEXEC flag in  open(2)  for
36              reasons why this may be useful.
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RETURN VALUE

39       On success, these system calls return a new file descriptor.  On error,
40       -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.
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ERRORS

43       EINVAL (inotify_init1()) An invalid value was specified in flags.
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45       EMFILE The user limit on the total number of inotify instances has been
46              reached.
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48       EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has
49              been reached.
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51       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
52              reached.
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54       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory is available.
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STANDARDS

57       Linux.
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HISTORY

60       inotify_init()
61              Linux 2.6.13, glibc 2.4.
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63       inotify_init1()
64              Linux 2.6.27, glibc 2.9.
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