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NAME
shm_open, shm_unlink - create/open or unlink POSIX shared memory objects
LIBRARY
Real-time library (librt, -lrt)
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/stat.h> /* For mode constants */
#include <fcntl.h> /* For O_* constants */
int shm_open(const char *name, int oflag, mode_t mode);
int shm_unlink(const char *name);
DESCRIPTION
shm_open() creates and opens a new, or opens an existing, POSIX shared memory object. A
POSIX shared memory object is in effect a handle which can be used by unrelated processes
to mmap(2) the same region of shared memory. The shm_unlink() function performs the
converse operation, removing an object previously created by shm_open().
The operation of shm_open() is analogous to that of open(2). name specifies the shared
memory object to be created or opened. For portable use, a shared memory object should be
identified by a name of the form /somename; that is, a null-terminated string of up to
NAME_MAX (i.e., 255) characters consisting of an initial slash, followed by one or more
characters, none of which are slashes.
oflag is a bit mask created by ORing together exactly one of O_RDONLY or O_RDWR and any of
the other flags listed here:
O_RDONLY
Open the object for read access. A shared memory object opened in this way can be
mmap(2)ed only for read (PROT_READ) access.
O_RDWR Open the object for read-write access.
O_CREAT
Create the shared memory object if it does not exist. The user and group ownership
of the object are taken from the corresponding effective IDs of the calling
process, and the object's permission bits are set according to the low-order 9 bits
of mode, except that those bits set in the process file mode creation mask (see
umask(2)) are cleared for the new object. A set of macro constants which can be
used to define mode is listed in open(2). (Symbolic definitions of these constants
can be obtained by including <sys/stat.h>.)
A new shared memory object initially has zero length—the size of the object can be
set using ftruncate(2). The newly allocated bytes of a shared memory object are
automatically initialized to 0.
O_EXCL If O_CREAT was also specified, and a shared memory object with the given name
already exists, return an error. The check for the existence of the object, and
its creation if it does not exist, are performed atomically.
O_TRUNC
If the shared memory object already exists, truncate it to zero bytes.
Definitions of these flag values can be obtained by including <fcntl.h>.
On successful completion shm_open() returns a new file descriptor referring to the shared
memory object. This file descriptor is guaranteed to be the lowest-numbered file
descriptor not previously opened within the process. The FD_CLOEXEC flag (see fcntl(2))
is set for the file descriptor.
The file descriptor is normally used in subsequent calls to ftruncate(2) (for a newly
created object) and mmap(2). After a call to mmap(2) the file descriptor may be closed
without affecting the memory mapping.
The operation of shm_unlink() is analogous to unlink(2): it removes a shared memory object
name, and, once all processes have unmapped the object, deallocates and destroys the
contents of the associated memory region. After a successful shm_unlink(), attempts to
shm_open() an object with the same name fail (unless O_CREAT was specified, in which case
a new, distinct object is created).
RETURN VALUE
On success, shm_open() returns a file descriptor (a nonnegative integer). On success,
shm_unlink() returns 0. On failure, both functions return -1 and set errno to indicate
the error.
ERRORS
EACCES Permission to shm_unlink() the shared memory object was denied.
EACCES Permission was denied to shm_open() name in the specified mode, or O_TRUNC was
specified and the caller does not have write permission on the object.
EEXIST Both O_CREAT and O_EXCL were specified to shm_open() and the shared memory object
specified by name already exists.
EINVAL The name argument to shm_open() was invalid.
EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been reached.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of name exceeds PATH_MAX.
ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been reached.
ENOENT An attempt was made to shm_open() a name that did not exist, and O_CREAT was not
specified.
ENOENT An attempt was to made to shm_unlink() a name that does not exist.
VERSIONS
These functions are provided in glibc 2.2 and later.
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
│Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
│shm_open(), shm_unlink() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘
STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
POSIX.1-2001 says that the group ownership of a newly created shared memory object is set
to either the calling process's effective group ID or "a system default group ID".
POSIX.1-2008 says that the group ownership may be set to either the calling process's
effective group ID or, if the object is visible in the filesystem, the group ID of the
parent directory.
NOTES
POSIX leaves the behavior of the combination of O_RDONLY and O_TRUNC unspecified. On
Linux, this will successfully truncate an existing shared memory object—this may not be so
on other UNIX systems.
The POSIX shared memory object implementation on Linux makes use of a dedicated tmpfs(5)
filesystem that is normally mounted under /dev/shm.
EXAMPLES
The programs below employ POSIX shared memory and POSIX unnamed semaphores to exchange a
piece of data. The "bounce" program (which must be run first) raises the case of a string
that is placed into the shared memory by the "send" program. Once the data has been
modified, the "send" program then prints the contents of the modified shared memory. An
example execution of the two programs is the following:
$ ./pshm_ucase_bounce /myshm &
[1] 270171
$ ./pshm_ucase_send /myshm hello
HELLO
Further detail about these programs is provided below.
Program source: pshm_ucase.h
The following header file is included by both programs below. Its primary purpose is to
define a structure that will be imposed on the memory object that is shared between the
two programs.
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \
} while (0)
#define BUF_SIZE 1024 /* Maximum size for exchanged string */
/* Define a structure that will be imposed on the shared
memory object */
struct shmbuf {
sem_t sem1; /* POSIX unnamed semaphore */
sem_t sem2; /* POSIX unnamed semaphore */
size_t cnt; /* Number of bytes used in 'buf' */
char buf[BUF_SIZE]; /* Data being transferred */
};
Program source: pshm_ucase_bounce.c
The "bounce" program creates a new shared memory object with the name given in its
command-line argument and sizes the object to match the size of the shmbuf structure
defined in the header file. It then maps the object into the process's address space, and
initializes two POSIX semaphores inside the object to 0.
After the "send" program has posted the first of the semaphores, the "bounce" program
upper cases the data that has been placed in the memory by the "send" program and then
posts the second semaphore to tell the "send" program that it may now access the shared
memory.
/* pshm_ucase_bounce.c
Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later.
*/
#include <ctype.h>
#include "pshm_ucase.h"
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int fd;
char *shmpath;
struct shmbuf *shmp;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s /shm-path\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
shmpath = argv[1];
/* Create shared memory object and set its size to the size
of our structure. */
fd = shm_open(shmpath, O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_RDWR, 0600);
if (fd == -1)
errExit("shm_open");
if (ftruncate(fd, sizeof(struct shmbuf)) == -1)
errExit("ftruncate");
/* Map the object into the caller's address space. */
shmp = mmap(NULL, sizeof(*shmp), PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
if (shmp == MAP_FAILED)
errExit("mmap");
/* Initialize semaphores as process-shared, with value 0. */
if (sem_init(&shmp->sem1, 1, 0) == -1)
errExit("sem_init-sem1");
if (sem_init(&shmp->sem2, 1, 0) == -1)
errExit("sem_init-sem2");
/* Wait for 'sem1' to be posted by peer before touching
shared memory. */
if (sem_wait(&shmp->sem1) == -1)
errExit("sem_wait");
/* Convert data in shared memory into upper case. */
for (size_t j = 0; j < shmp->cnt; j++)
shmp->buf[j] = toupper((unsigned char) shmp->buf[j]);
/* Post 'sem2' to tell the peer that it can now
access the modified data in shared memory. */
if (sem_post(&shmp->sem2) == -1)
errExit("sem_post");
/* Unlink the shared memory object. Even if the peer process
is still using the object, this is okay. The object will
be removed only after all open references are closed. */
shm_unlink(shmpath);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
Program source: pshm_ucase_send.c
The "send" program takes two command-line arguments: the pathname of a shared memory
object previously created by the "bounce" program and a string that is to be copied into
that object.
The program opens the shared memory object and maps the object into its address space. It
then copies the data specified in its second argument into the shared memory, and posts
the first semaphore, which tells the "bounce" program that it can now access that data.
After the "bounce" program posts the second semaphore, the "send" program prints the
contents of the shared memory on standard output.
/* pshm_ucase_send.c
Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later.
*/
#include <string.h>
#include "pshm_ucase.h"
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int fd;
char *shmpath, *string;
size_t len;
struct shmbuf *shmp;
if (argc != 3) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s /shm-path string\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
shmpath = argv[1];
string = argv[2];
len = strlen(string);
if (len > BUF_SIZE) {
fprintf(stderr, "String is too long\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Open the existing shared memory object and map it
into the caller's address space. */
fd = shm_open(shmpath, O_RDWR, 0);
if (fd == -1)
errExit("shm_open");
shmp = mmap(NULL, sizeof(*shmp), PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
if (shmp == MAP_FAILED)
errExit("mmap");
/* Copy data into the shared memory object. */
shmp->cnt = len;
memcpy(&shmp->buf, string, len);
/* Tell peer that it can now access shared memory. */
if (sem_post(&shmp->sem1) == -1)
errExit("sem_post");
/* Wait until peer says that it has finished accessing
the shared memory. */
if (sem_wait(&shmp->sem2) == -1)
errExit("sem_wait");
/* Write modified data in shared memory to standard output. */
write(STDOUT_FILENO, &shmp->buf, len);
write(STDOUT_FILENO, "\n", 1);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
close(2), fchmod(2), fchown(2), fcntl(2), fstat(2), ftruncate(2), memfd_create(2),
mmap(2), open(2), umask(2), shm_overview(7)