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

       This page is part of release 5.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.