NAME
inotifyaddwatch - add a watch to an initialized inotify instance SYNOPSIS
#include
int inotifyaddwatch(int fd, const char *pathname, uint32t mask); DESCRIPTION inotifyaddwatch() adds a new watch, or modifies an existing watch, for the file whose location is specified in pathname; the caller must have read permission for this file. The fd argument is a file descrip‐ tor referring to the inotify instance whose watch list is to be modi‐ fied. The events to be monitored for pathname are specified in the mask bit-mask argument. See inotify(7) for a description of the bits that can be set in mask. A successful call to inotifyaddwatch() returns the unique watch descriptor associated with pathname for this inotify instance. If pathname was not previously being watched by this inotify instance, then the watch descriptor is newly allocated. If pathname was already being watched, then the descriptor for the existing watch is returned. The watch descriptor is returned by later read(2)s from the inotify file descriptor. These reads fetch inotifyevent structures (see ino‐ tify(7)) indicating file system events; the watch descriptor inside this structure identifies the object for which the event occurred. RETURN VALUE On success, inotifyaddwatch() returns a nonnegative watch descriptor.
On error -1 is returned and errno is set appropriately. ERRORS EACCES Read access to the given file is not permitted. EBADF The given file descriptor is not valid. EFAULT pathname points outside of the process's accessible address space. EINVAL The given event mask contains no valid events; or fd is not an inotify file descriptor. ENOENT A directory component in pathname does not exist or is a dan‐ gling symbolic link. ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available. ENOSPC The user limit on the total number of inotify watches was reached or the kernel failed to allocate a needed resource. VERSIONS Inotify was merged into the 2.6.13 Linux kernel. CONFORMING TO
This system call is Linux-specific. SEE ALSO inotifyinit(2), inotifyrmwatch(2), inotify(7) COLOPHON
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Linux 2010-10-20 INOTIFYADDWATCH(2)