xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/vn_fullpath.9 (revision cbb3ec25236ba72f91cbdf23f8b78b9d1af0cedf)
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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