xref: /freebsd/lib/libsys/fsync.2 (revision aa1a8ff2d6dbc51ef058f46f3db5a8bb77967145)
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33.Dd March 30, 2020
34.Dt FSYNC 2
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm fdatasync ,
38.Nm fsync
39.Nd "synchronise changes to a file"
40.Sh LIBRARY
41.Lb libc
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.In unistd.h
44.Ft int
45.Fn fdatasync "int fd"
46.Ft int
47.Fn fsync "int fd"
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Fn fsync
51system call
52causes all modified data and attributes of the file referenced by
53the file descriptor
54.Fa fd
55to be moved to a permanent storage device.
56This normally results in all in-core modified copies
57of buffers for the associated file to be written to a disk.
58.Pp
59The
60.Fn fdatasync
61system call causes all modified data of
62.Fa fd
63to be moved to a permanent storage device.
64Unlike
65.Fn fsync ,
66the system call does not guarantee that file attributes or
67metadata necessary to access the file are committed to the permanent storage.
68.Pp
69The
70.Fn fsync
71system call
72should be used by programs that require a file to be
73in a known state, for example, in building a simple transaction
74facility.
75If the file metadata has already been committed, using
76.Fn fdatasync
77can be more efficient than
78.Fn fsync .
79.Pp
80Both
81.Fn fdatasync
82and
83.Fn fsync
84calls are cancellation points.
85.Sh RETURN VALUES
86.Rv -std fsync
87.Sh ERRORS
88The
89.Fn fsync
90and
91.Fn fdatasync
92calls fail if:
93.Bl -tag -width Er
94.It Bq Er EBADF
95The
96.Fa fd
97argument
98is not a valid descriptor.
99.It Bq Er EINVAL
100The
101.Fa fd
102argument
103refers to a socket, not to a file.
104.It Bq Er EIO
105An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
106.It Bq Er EINTEGRITY
107Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
108.El
109.Sh SEE ALSO
110.Xr fsync 1 ,
111.Xr sync 2 ,
112.Xr syncer 4 ,
113.Xr sync 8
114.Sh HISTORY
115The
116.Fn fsync
117system call appeared in
118.Bx 4.2 .
119The
120.Fn fdatasync
121system call appeared in
122.Fx 11.1 .
123.Sh BUGS
124The
125.Fn fdatasync
126system call currently does not guarantee that enqueued
127.Xr aio 4
128requests for the file referenced by
129.Fa fd
130are completed before the syscall returns.
131