inotify_init(2)               System Calls Manual              inotify_init(2)

NAME
       inotify_init, inotify_init1 - initialize an inotify instance

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/inotify.h>

       int inotify_init(void);
       int inotify_init1(int flags);

DESCRIPTION
       For an overview of the inotify API, see inotify(7).

       inotify_init() initializes a new inotify instance and returns a file
       descriptor associated with a new inotify event queue.

       If flags is 0, then inotify_init1() is the same as inotify_init().  The
       following values can be bitwise ORed in flags to obtain different
       behavior:

       IN_NONBLOCK
              Set the O_NONBLOCK file status flag on the open file description
              (see open(2)) referred to by the new file descriptor.  Using
              this flag saves extra calls to fcntl(2) to achieve the same
              result.

       IN_CLOEXEC
              Set the close-on-exec (FD_CLOEXEC) flag on the new file
              descriptor.  See the description of the O_CLOEXEC flag in
              open(2) for reasons why this may be useful.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, these system calls return a new file descriptor.  On error,
       -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       EINVAL (inotify_init1()) An invalid value was specified in flags.

       EMFILE The user limit on the total number of inotify instances has been
              reached.

       EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has
              been reached.

       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
              reached.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory is available.

STANDARDS
       Linux.

HISTORY
       inotify_init()
              Linux 2.6.13, glibc 2.4.

       inotify_init1()
              Linux 2.6.27, glibc 2.9.

SEE ALSO
       inotify_add_watch(2), inotify_rm_watch(2), inotify(7)

Linux man-pages 6.7               2023-10-31                   inotify_init(2)