.\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)madvise.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93 .\" $FreeBSD: head/lib/libc/sys/posix_fadvise.2 288640 2015-10-03 22:27:14Z markj $ .\" .Dd October 3, 2015 .Dt POSIX_FADVISE 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm posix_fadvise .Nd give advice about use of file data .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In fcntl.h .Ft int .Fn posix_fadvise "int fd" "off_t offset" "off_t len" "int advice" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn posix_fadvise system call allows a process to describe to the system its data access behavior for an open file descriptor .Fa fd . The advice covers the data starting at offset .Fa offset and continuing for .Fa len bytes. If .Fa len is zero, all data from .Fa offset to the end of the file is covered. .Pp The behavior is specified by the .Fa advice parameter and may be one of: .Bl -tag -width POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL .It Dv POSIX_FADV_NORMAL Tells the system to revert to the default data access behavior. .It Dv POSIX_FADV_RANDOM Is a hint that file data will be accessed randomly, and prefetching is likely not advantageous. .It Dv POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL Tells the system that file data will be accessed sequentially. This currently does nothing as the default behavior uses heuristics to detect sequential behavior. .It Dv POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED Tells the system that the specified data will be accessed in the near future. The system may initiate an asynchronous read of the data if it is not already present in memory. .It Dv POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED Tells the system that the specified data will not be accessed in the near future. The system may decrease the in-memory priority of clean data within the specified range and future access to this data may require a read operation. .It Dv POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE Tells the system that the specified data will only be accessed once and then not reused. The system may decrease the in-memory priority of data once it has been read or written. Future access to this data may require a read operation. .El .Sh RETURN VALUES If successful, .Fn posix_fadvise returns zero. It returns an error on failure, without setting .Va errno . .Sh ERRORS Possible failure conditions: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBADF The .Fa fd argument is not a valid file descriptor. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa advice argument is not valid. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa offset or .Fa len arguments are negative, or .Fa offset + .Fa len is greater than the maximum file size. .It Bq Er ENODEV The .Fa fd argument does not refer to a regular file. .It Bq Er ESPIPE The .Fa fd argument is associated with a pipe or FIFO. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr madvise 2 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn posix_fadvise interface conforms to .St -p1003.1-2001 . .Sh HISTORY The .Fn posix_fadvise system call first appeared in .Fx 9.1 .