NAME

       inotify_init, inotify_init1 - initialize an inotify instance

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.

VERSIONS

       inotify_init()  first  appeared  in  Linux  2.6.13;  library  support  was added to glibc in version 2.4.
       inotify_init1() was added in Linux 2.6.27; library support was added to glibc in version 2.9.

CONFORMING TO

       These system calls are Linux-specific.

SEE ALSO

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

COLOPHON

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