shm_open, shm_unlink — Create/open or unlink POSIX shared memory objects
#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 ); | 
| ![[Note]](../stylesheet/note.png) | Note | 
|---|---|
| Link with  | 
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_RDONLYOpen the object for read access. A shared memory
            object opened in this way can only be mmap(2)ed for read
            (PROT_READ) access.
O_RDWROpen the object for read-write access.
O_CREATCreate 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_EXCLIf 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_TRUNCIf 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, de-allocates and destroys the contents
      of the associated memory region. After a successful
      shm_unlink(), attempts to
      shm_open() an object with the
      same name will fail
      (unless O_CREAT was specified,
      in which case a new, distinct object is created).
On success, shm_open()
      returns a nonnegative file descriptor. On failure,
      shm_open() returns −1.
      shm_unlink() returns 0 on
      success, or −1 on error.
On failure, errno is set to
      indicate the cause of the error. Values which may appear in
      errno include the following:
Permission to shm_unlink() the shared memory object
            was denied.
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.
Both O_CREAT and
            O_EXCL were specified to
            shm_open() and the shared
            memory object specified by name already exists.
The name
            argument to shm_open()
            was invalid.
The process already has the maximum number of files open.
The length of name exceeds PATH_MAX.
The limit on the total number of files open on the system has been reached.
An attempt was made to shm_open() a name that did not exist,
            and O_CREAT was not
            specified.
An attempt was to made to shm_unlink() a name that does not
            exist.
POSIX.1-2001.
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 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 2.4
      makes use of a dedicated file system, which is normally
      mounted under /dev/shm.
close(2), fchmod(2), fchown(2), fcntl(2), fstat(2), ftruncate(2), mmap(2), open(2), umask(2), shm_overview(7)
This page is part of release 3.35 of the Linux man-pages project. A
      description of the project, and information about reporting
      bugs, can be found at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/.
| Copyright (C) 2002 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working professionally. Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. FIXME . Add an example to this page |