xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/vn_fullpath.9 (revision af23369a6deaaeb612ab266eb88b8bb8d560c322)
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30.Dd June 15, 2021
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 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 vp
72The vnode to search for.
73No need to be locked by the caller.
74.It Fa retbuf
75Pointer to a
76.Vt "char *"
77that
78.Fn vn_fullpath
79may (on success) point at a newly
80allocated buffer containing the resulting pathname.
81.It Fa freebuf
82Pointer to a
83.Vt "char *"
84that
85.Fn vn_fullpath
86may (on success) point at a buffer
87to be freed, when the caller is done with
88.Fa retbuf .
89.El
90.Pp
91Typical consumers will declare two character pointers:
92.Va fullpath
93and
94.Va freepath ;
95they will set
96.Va freepath
97to
98.Dv NULL ,
99and
100.Va fullpath
101to a name to use
102in the event that the call to
103.Fn vn_fullpath
104fails.
105After done with the value of
106.Va fullpath ,
107the caller will check if
108.Va freepath
109is
110.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
111and if so, invoke
112.Xr free 9
113with a pool type of
114.Dv M_TEMP .
115.Sh RETURN VALUES
116If the vnode is successfully converted to a pathname, 0 is returned;
117otherwise, an error number is returned.
118.Sh SEE ALSO
119.Xr free 9
120.Sh AUTHORS
121This manual page was written by
122.An Robert Watson Aq Mt rwatson@FreeBSD.org .
123