1. 18 May, 2007 1 commit
  2. 11 May, 2007 1 commit
    • Davide Libenzi's avatar
      signal/timer/event: timerfd core · b215e283
      Davide Libenzi authored
      This patch introduces a new system call for timers events delivered though
      file descriptors.  This allows timer event to be used with standard POSIX
      poll(2), select(2) and read(2).  As a consequence of supporting the Linux
      f_op->poll subsystem, they can be used with epoll(2) too.
      
      The system call is defined as:
      
      int timerfd(int ufd, int clockid, int flags, const struct itimerspec *utmr);
      
      The "ufd" parameter allows for re-use (re-programming) of an existing timerfd
      w/out going through the close/open cycle (same as signalfd).  If "ufd" is -1,
      s new file descriptor will be created, otherwise the existing "ufd" will be
      re-programmed.
      
      The "clockid" parameter is either CLOCK_MONOTONIC or CLOCK_REALTIME.  The time
      specified in the "utmr->it_value" parameter is the expiry time for the timer.
      
      If the TFD_TIMER_ABSTIME flag is set in "flags", this is an absolute time,
      otherwise it's a relative time.
      
      If the time specified in the "utmr->it_interval" is not zero (.tv_sec == 0,
      tv_nsec == 0), this is the period at which the following ticks should be
      generated.
      
      The "utmr->it_interval" should be set to zero if only one tick is requested.
      Setting the "utmr->it_value" to zero will disable the timer, or will create a
      timerfd without the timer enabled.
      
      The function returns the new (or same, in case "ufd" is a valid timerfd
      descriptor) file, or -1 in case of error.
      
      As stated before, the timerfd file descriptor supports poll(2), select(2) and
      epoll(2).  When a timer event happened on the timerfd, a POLLIN mask will be
      returned.
      
      The read(2) call can be used, and it will return a u32 variable holding the
      number of "ticks" that happened on the interface since the last call to
      read(2).  The read(2) call supportes the O_NONBLOCK flag too, and EAGAIN will
      be returned if no ticks happened.
      
      A quick test program, shows timerfd working correctly on my amd64 box:
      
      http://www.xmailserver.org/timerfd-test.c
      
      
      
      [akpm@linux-foundation.org: add sys_timerfd to sys_ni.c]
      Signed-off-by: default avatarDavide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      b215e283