xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/vn_fullpath.9 (revision 4717628ed859513a3262ea68259d0605f39de0b3)
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.Dd June 15, 2021
29.Dt VN_FULLPATH 9
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm vn_fullpath
33.Nd "convert a vnode reference to a full pathname, given a process context"
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.In sys/param.h
36.In sys/vnode.h
37.Ft int
38.Fo vn_fullpath
39.Fa "struct vnode *vp" "char **retbuf" "char **freebuf"
40.Fc
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42The
43.Fn vn_fullpath
44function makes a
45.Dq "best effort"
46attempt to generate a string pathname for
47the passed vnode; the resulting path, if any, will be relative to
48the root directory of the process associated with the passed thread pointer.
49The
50.Fn vn_fullpath
51function
52is implemented by inspecting the VFS name cache, and attempting to
53reconstruct a path from the process root to the object.
54.Pp
55This process is necessarily unreliable for several reasons: intermediate
56entries in the path may not be found in the cache; files may have more
57than one name (hard links), not all file systems use the name cache
58(specifically, most synthetic file systems do not); a single name may
59be used for more than one file (in the context of file systems covering
60other file systems); a file may have no name (if deleted but still
61open or referenced).
62However, the resulting string may still be more useable to a user than
63a vnode pointer value, or a device number and inode number.
64Code consuming the results of this function should anticipate (and
65properly handle) failure.
66.Pp
67Its arguments are:
68.Bl -tag -width ".Fa freebuf"
69.It Fa vp
70The vnode to search for.
71No need to be locked by the caller.
72.It Fa retbuf
73Pointer to a
74.Vt "char *"
75that
76.Fn vn_fullpath
77may (on success) point at a newly
78allocated buffer containing the resulting pathname.
79.It Fa freebuf
80Pointer to a
81.Vt "char *"
82that
83.Fn vn_fullpath
84may (on success) point at a buffer
85to be freed, when the caller is done with
86.Fa retbuf .
87.El
88.Pp
89Typical consumers will declare two character pointers:
90.Va fullpath
91and
92.Va freepath ;
93they will set
94.Va freepath
95to
96.Dv NULL ,
97and
98.Va fullpath
99to a name to use
100in the event that the call to
101.Fn vn_fullpath
102fails.
103After done with the value of
104.Va fullpath ,
105the caller will check if
106.Va freepath
107is
108.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
109and if so, invoke
110.Xr free 9
111with a pool type of
112.Dv M_TEMP .
113.Sh RETURN VALUES
114If the vnode is successfully converted to a pathname, 0 is returned;
115otherwise, an error number is returned.
116.Sh SEE ALSO
117.Xr free 9
118.Sh AUTHORS
119This manual page was written by
120.An Robert Watson Aq Mt rwatson@FreeBSD.org .
121