linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v3] introduce sys_syncfs to sync a single file system

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Date:	Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:29:17 -0700 (PDT)
From:	Sage Weil <sage@...dream.net>
To:	Indan Zupancic <indan@....nu>
cc:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@...il.com>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	"Aneesh Kumar K. V" <aneesh.kumar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, linux-api@...r.kernel.org,
	mtk.manpages@...il.com, viro@...iv.linux.org.uk, hch@....de,
	l@...per.es
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] introduce sys_syncfs to sync a single file system

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Indan Zupancic wrote:
> Everyone seems to want to add this new syncfs, but it's not even defined 
> what it does. "Same as sync, but only on one fs" is IMHO not good 
> enough, because sync's behaviour is pretty badly documented, and that's 
> a system call.

How about the man page below?  I tried to avoid the somewhat antiquated 
implementation specific terminology in the sync(2) man page.

I think adding this functionality into sync_file_range(2) is forcing 
unrelated functionality into an existing interface; sync_file_range 
operates on _files_, not an entire file system.  With each API addition it 
is more important to make the interface simple and intuitive than to 
minimize the size of our patches.  IMO that's why a new syscall is 
preferable to, say, an equivalent ioctl.

Thanks-
sage


.TH SYNCFS 2 2011-03-13 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
syncfs \- commit cached file system state to stable storage
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <unistd.h>
.sp
.B void syncfs(int fd);
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR syncfs ()
flushes any cached data modifications to the file system containing the 
file referenced by the file descriptor
.I fd
to stable storage (usually a disk).  This includes the results of any
file modifications or other file system operations that have completed
prior to the call to
.BR syncfs(2).
This is similar to 
.BR sync(2),
but will commit changes for only a single file system instead of all
mounted file systems.
.SH ERRORS
This function is always successful.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR bdflush (2),
.BR fdatasync (2),
.BR fsync (2),
.BR sync (2),
.BR sync (8),
.BR update (8)
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