readahead - initiate file readahead into page cache
Standard C library (
libc,
-lc)
#define _GNU_SOURCE /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <fcntl.h>
ssize_t readahead(int fd, off64_t offset, size_t count);
readahead() initiates readahead on a file so that subsequent reads from
that file will be satisfied from the cache, and not block on disk I/O
(assuming the readahead was initiated early enough and that other activity on
the system did not in the meantime flush pages from the cache).
The
fd argument is a file descriptor identifying the file which is to be
read. The
offset argument specifies the starting point from which data
is to be read and
count specifies the number of bytes to be read. I/O
is performed in whole pages, so that
offset is effectively rounded down
to a page boundary and bytes are read up to the next page boundary greater
than or equal to
(offset+count).
readahead() does not read
beyond the end of the file. The file offset of the open file description
referred to by the file descriptor
fd is left unchanged.
On success,
readahead() returns 0; on failure, -1 is returned, with
errno set to indicate the error.
- EBADF
-
fd is not a valid file descriptor or is not open for
reading.
- EINVAL
-
fd does not refer to a file type to which
readahead() can be applied.
The
readahead() system call appeared in Linux 2.4.13; glibc support has
been provided since glibc 2.3.
The
readahead() system call is Linux-specific, and its use should be
avoided in portable applications.
On some 32-bit architectures, the calling signature for this system call
differs, for the reasons described in
syscall(2).
readahead() attempts to schedule the reads in the background and return
immediately. However, it may block while it reads the filesystem metadata
needed to locate the requested blocks. This occurs frequently with ext[234] on
large files using indirect blocks instead of extents, giving the appearance
that the call blocks until the requested data has been read.
lseek(2),
madvise(2),
mmap(2),
posix_fadvise(2),
read(2)