xref: /freebsd-14.2/lib/libc/sys/fsync.2 (revision b2c76c41)
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33.\"     @(#)fsync.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
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35.Dd March 30, 2020
36.Dt FSYNC 2
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm fdatasync ,
40.Nm fsync
41.Nd "synchronise changes to a file"
42.Sh LIBRARY
43.Lb libc
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.In unistd.h
46.Ft int
47.Fn fdatasync "int fd"
48.Ft int
49.Fn fsync "int fd"
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51The
52.Fn fsync
53system call
54causes all modified data and attributes of the file referenced by
55the file descriptor
56.Fa fd
57to be moved to a permanent storage device.
58This normally results in all in-core modified copies
59of buffers for the associated file to be written to a disk.
60.Pp
61The
62.Fn fdatasync
63system call causes all modified data of
64.Fa fd
65to be moved to a permanent storage device.
66Unlike
67.Fn fsync ,
68the system call does not guarantee that file attributes or
69metadata necessary to access the file are committed to the permanent storage.
70.Pp
71The
72.Fn fsync
73system call
74should be used by programs that require a file to be
75in a known state, for example, in building a simple transaction
76facility.
77If the file metadata has already been committed, using
78.Fn fdatasync
79can be more efficient than
80.Fn fsync .
81.Pp
82Both
83.Fn fdatasync
84and
85.Fn fsync
86calls are cancellation points.
87.Sh RETURN VALUES
88.Rv -std fsync
89.Sh ERRORS
90The
91.Fn fsync
92and
93.Fn fdatasync
94calls fail if:
95.Bl -tag -width Er
96.It Bq Er EBADF
97The
98.Fa fd
99argument
100is not a valid descriptor.
101.It Bq Er EINVAL
102The
103.Fa fd
104argument
105refers to a socket, not to a file.
106.It Bq Er EIO
107An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
108.It Bq Er EINTEGRITY
109Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
110.El
111.Sh SEE ALSO
112.Xr fsync 1 ,
113.Xr sync 2 ,
114.Xr syncer 4 ,
115.Xr sync 8
116.Sh HISTORY
117The
118.Fn fsync
119system call appeared in
120.Bx 4.2 .
121The
122.Fn fdatasync
123system call appeared in
124.Fx 11.1 .
125.Sh BUGS
126The
127.Fn fdatasync
128system call currently does not guarantee that enqueued
129.Xr aio 4
130requests for the file referenced by
131.Fa fd
132are completed before the syscall returns.
133