xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/vn_fullpath.9 (revision 0b57cec536236d46e3dba9bd041533462f33dbb7)
1.\"
2.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Robert N. M. Watson.
3.\" All rights reserved.
4.\"
5.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
6.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
7.\" are met:
8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
9.\"    notice(s), this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as
10.\"    the first lines of this file unmodified other than the possible
11.\"    addition of one or more copyright notices.
12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
13.\"    notice(s), this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
14.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER(S) ``AS IS'' AND ANY
17.\" EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
18.\" WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
19.\" DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY
20.\" DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
21.\" (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
22.\" SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
23.\" CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
26.\" DAMAGE.
27.\"
28.\" $FreeBSD$
29.\"
30.Dd November 23, 2008
31.Dt VN_FULLPATH 9
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm vn_fullpath
35.Nd "convert a vnode reference to a full pathname, given a process context"
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In sys/param.h
38.In sys/vnode.h
39.Ft int
40.Fo vn_fullpath
41.Fa "struct thread *td" "struct vnode *vp" "char **retbuf" "char **freebuf"
42.Fc
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Fn vn_fullpath
46function makes a
47.Dq "best effort"
48attempt to generate a string pathname for
49the passed vnode; the resulting path, if any, will be relative to
50the root directory of the process associated with the passed thread pointer.
51The
52.Fn vn_fullpath
53function
54is implemented by inspecting the VFS name cache, and attempting to
55reconstruct a path from the process root to the object.
56.Pp
57This process is necessarily unreliable for several reasons: intermediate
58entries in the path may not be found in the cache; files may have more
59than one name (hard links), not all file systems use the name cache
60(specifically, most synthetic file systems do not); a single name may
61be used for more than one file (in the context of file systems covering
62other file systems); a file may have no name (if deleted but still
63open or referenced).
64However, the resulting string may still be more useable to a user than
65a vnode pointer value, or a device number and inode number.
66Code consuming the results of this function should anticipate (and
67properly handle) failure.
68.Pp
69Its arguments are:
70.Bl -tag -width ".Fa freebuf"
71.It Fa td
72The thread performing the call; this pointer will be dereferenced to find
73the process and its file descriptor structure, in order to identify the
74root vnode to use.
75.It Fa vp
76The vnode to search for.
77No need to be locked by the caller.
78.It Fa retbuf
79Pointer to a
80.Vt "char *"
81that
82.Fn vn_fullpath
83may (on success) point at a newly
84allocated buffer containing the resulting pathname.
85.It Fa freebuf
86Pointer to a
87.Vt "char *"
88that
89.Fn vn_fullpath
90may (on success) point at a buffer
91to be freed, when the caller is done with
92.Fa retbuf .
93.El
94.Pp
95Typical consumers will declare two character pointers:
96.Va fullpath
97and
98.Va freepath ;
99they will set
100.Va freepath
101to
102.Dv NULL ,
103and
104.Va fullpath
105to a name to use
106in the event that the call to
107.Fn vn_fullpath
108fails.
109After done with the value of
110.Va fullpath ,
111the caller will check if
112.Va freepath
113is
114.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
115and if so, invoke
116.Xr free 9
117with a pool type of
118.Dv M_TEMP .
119.Sh RETURN VALUES
120If the vnode is successfully converted to a pathname, 0 is returned;
121otherwise, an error number is returned.
122.Sh SEE ALSO
123.Xr free 9
124.Sh AUTHORS
125This manual page was written by
126.An Robert Watson Aq Mt rwatson@FreeBSD.org .
127