#include <aio.h>

int lio_listio(int mode, struct aiocb *restrict const list[],
 int nent, struct sigevent *restrict sig);

The lio_listio() function allows the calling process, LWP, or thread, to initiate a list of I/O requests within a single function call.

The mode argument takes one of the values LIO_WAIT or LIO_NOWAIT declared in <aio.h> and determines whether the function returns when the I/O operations have been completed, or as soon as the operations have been queued. If the mode argument is LIO_WAIT, the function waits until all I/O is complete and the sig argument is ignored.

If the mode argument is LIO_NOWAIT, the function returns immediately, and asynchronous notification occurs, according to the sig argument, when all the I/O operations complete. If sig is NULL, no asynchronous notification occurs. If sig is not NULL, asynchronous notification occurs as specified in signal.h(3HEAD) when all the requests in list have completed.

The I/O requests enumerated by list are submitted in an unspecified order.

The list argument is an array of pointers to aiocb structures. The array contains nent elements. The array may contain null elements, which are ignored.

The aio_lio_opcode field of each aiocb structure specifies the operation to be performed. The supported operations are LIO_READ, LIO_WRITE, and LIO_NOP; these symbols are defined in <aio.h>. The LIO_NOP operation causes the list entry to be ignored. If the aio_lio_opcode element is equal to LIO_READ, then an I/O operation is submitted as if by a call to aio_read(3C) with the aiocbp equal to the address of the aiocb structure. If the aio_lio_opcode element is equal to LIO_WRITE, then an I/O operation is submitted as if by a call to aio_write(3C) with the aiocbp equal to the address of the aiocb structure.

The aio_fildes member specifies the file descriptor on which the operation is to be performed.

The aio_buf member specifies the address of the buffer to or from which the data is to be transferred.

The aio_nbytes member specifies the number of bytes of data to be transferred.

The members of the aiocb structure further describe the I/O operation to be performed, in a manner identical to that of the corresponding aiocb structure when used by the aio_read(3C) and aio_write(3C) functions.

The nent argument specifies how many elements are members of the list, that is, the length of the array.

The behavior of this function is altered according to the definitions of synchronized I/O data integrity completion and synchronized I/O file integrity completion if synchronized I/O is enabled on the file associated with aio_fildes. See fcntl.h(3HEAD) definitions of O_DSYNC and O_SYNC.

For regular files, no data transfer will occur past the offset maximum established in the open file description associated with aiocbp\(->aio_fildes.

If the mode argument has the value LIO_NOWAIT, and the I/O operations are successfully queued, lio_listio() returns 0; otherwise, it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

If the mode argument has the value LIO_WAIT, and all the indicated I/O has completed successfully, lio_listio() returns 0; otherwise, it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

In either case, the return value only indicates the success or failure of the lio_listio() call itself, not the status of the individual I/O requests. In some cases, one or more of the I/O requests contained in the list may fail. Failure of an individual request does not prevent completion of any other individual request. To determine the outcome of each I/O request, the application must examine the error status associated with each aiocb control block. Each error status so returned is identical to that returned as a result of an aio_read(3C) or aio_write(3C) function.

The lio_listio() function will fail if: EAGAIN

In addition to the errors returned by the lio_listio() function, if the lio_listio() function succeeds or fails with errors of EAGAIN, EINTR, or EIO, then some of the I/O specified by the list may have been initiated. If the lio_listio() function fails with an error code other than EAGAIN, EINTR, or EIO, no operations from the list have been initiated. The I/O operation indicated by each list element can encounter errors specific to the individual read or write function being performed. In this event, the error status for each aiocb control block contains the associated error code. The error codes that can be set are the same as would be set by a read(2) or write(2) function, with the following additional error codes possible: EAGAIN

The lio_listio() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit file offsets. See lf64(5).

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

close(2), exec(2), exit(2), fork(2), lseek(2), read(2), write(2), aio_cancel(3C), aio_error(3C), aio_fsync(3C), aio_read(3C), aio_return(3C), aio_write(3C), aio.h(3HEAD), fcntl.h(3HEAD), siginfo.h(3HEAD), signal.h(3HEAD), attributes(5), lf64(5), standards(5)