xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/vn_fullpath.9 (revision d7d962ead0b6e5e8a39202d0590022082bf5bfb6)
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 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