Hello Paul,
On 04/20/2018 10:28 AM, Paul Millar wrote:
Hi,
I noticed that it was undocumented how inotify_add_watch(2) behaves if
IN_ONLYDIR is specified and the target is not a directory.
To discover this, I took the example code in inotify(7) and modified it
to include the IN_ONLYDIR flag. Running the code against an ordinary
file, I saw the following output:
paul@sparkplug:~/git/dCache
(development/frontend-inotify-namespace)$ ./inotify-test README
Press ENTER key to terminate.
Cannot watch 'README'
inotify_add_watch: Not a directory
paul@sparkplug:~/git/dCache (development/frontend-inotify-namespace)$
My machine is "Debian GNU/Linux 9.4 (stretch)". I imagine (but haven't
tested) that the same errno is used on other distros.
I've included a patch that adds ENOTDIR as an additional error in the
inotify_add_watch(2) man page.
Thanks. Patch applied.
I'm undecided whether or not the section in inotify(7) describing
IN_ONLYDIR should also be updated to describe how non-directory targets
are handled.
I think it's reasonable to do so, and I added the patch below.
Thanks for the patch and the report!
Cheers,
Michael
diff --git a/man7/inotify.7 b/man7/inotify.7
index 7e5a5b4df..85c05a9bc 100644
--- a/man7/inotify.7
+++ b/man7/inotify.7
@@ -358,7 +358,12 @@ watch list.
.BR IN_ONLYDIR " (since Linux 2.6.15)"
Watch
.I pathname
-only if it is a directory.
+only if it is a directory;
+the error
+.B ENOTDIR
+results if
+.I pathname
+is not a directory.
Using this flag provides an application with a race-free way of
ensuring that the monitored object is a directory.
.RE
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