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.TH SHM_OPEN "3P" 2013 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual"
.SH PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

.SH NAME
shm_open
\(em open a shared memory object
(\fBREALTIME\fP)
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
#include <sys/mman.h>
.P
int shm_open(const char *\fIname\fP, int \fIoflag\fP, mode_t \fImode\fP);
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
function shall establish a connection between a shared memory object
and a file descriptor. It shall create an open file description that
refers to the shared memory object and a file descriptor that refers to
that open file description. The file descriptor is used by other
functions to refer to that shared memory object. The
.IR name
argument points to a string naming a shared memory object. It is
unspecified whether the name appears in the file system and is visible
to other functions that take pathnames as arguments. The
.IR name
argument conforms to the construction rules for a pathname, except that
the interpretation of
<slash>
characters other than the leading
<slash>
character in
.IR name
is implementation-defined, and that the length limits for the
.IR name
argument are implementation-defined and need not be the same as the
pathname limits
{PATH_MAX}
and
{NAME_MAX}.
If
.IR name
begins with the
<slash>
character, then processes calling
\fIshm_open\fR()
with the same value of
.IR name
refer to the same shared memory object, as long as that name has not
been removed. If
.IR name
does not begin with the
<slash>
character, the effect is implementation-defined.
.P
If successful,
\fIshm_open\fR()
shall return a file descriptor for the shared memory object that is the
lowest numbered file descriptor not currently open for that process.
The open file description is new, and therefore the file descriptor
does not share it with any other processes. It is unspecified whether
the file offset is set. The FD_CLOEXEC
file descriptor flag associated with the new file descriptor is set.
.P
The file status flags and file access modes of the open file
description are according to the value of
.IR oflag .
The
.IR oflag
argument is the bitwise-inclusive OR of the following flags defined in
the
.IR <fcntl.h> 
header. Applications specify exactly one of the first two values
(access modes) below in the value of
.IR oflag :
.IP O_RDONLY 12
Open for read access only.
.IP O_RDWR 12
Open for read or write access.
.P
Any combination of the remaining flags may be specified in the value of
.IR oflag :
.IP O_CREAT 12
If the shared memory object exists, this flag has no effect, except
as noted under O_EXCL below. Otherwise, the shared memory object is
created. The user ID of the shared memory object shall be set to the
effective user ID of the process. The group ID of the shared memory object
shall be set to the effective group ID of the process; however, if the
.IR name
argument is visible in the file system, the group ID may be set to the
group ID of the containing directory. The permission bits of the shared
memory object shall be set to the value of the
.IR mode
argument except those set in the file mode creation mask of the
process. When bits in
.IR mode
other than the file permission bits are set, the effect is
unspecified. The
.IR mode
argument does not affect whether the shared memory object is opened for
reading, for writing, or for both. The shared memory object has a size
of zero.
.IP O_EXCL 12
If O_EXCL and O_CREAT are set,
\fIshm_open\fR()
fails if the shared memory object exists. The check for the existence
of the shared memory object and the creation of the object if it does
not exist is atomic with respect to other processes executing
\fIshm_open\fR()
naming the same shared memory object with O_EXCL and O_CREAT set. If
O_EXCL is set and O_CREAT is not set, the result is undefined.
.IP O_TRUNC 12
If the shared memory object exists, and it is successfully opened
O_RDWR, the object shall be truncated to zero length and the mode and
owner shall be unchanged by this function call. The result of using
O_TRUNC with O_RDONLY is undefined.
.P
When a shared memory object is created, the state of the shared memory
object, including all data associated with the shared memory object,
persists until the shared memory object is unlinked and all other
references are gone. It is unspecified whether the name and shared
memory object state remain valid after a system reboot.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
Upon successful completion, the
\fIshm_open\fR()
function shall return a non-negative integer representing the lowest
numbered unused file descriptor. Otherwise, it shall return \(mi1 and
set
.IR errno
to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
function shall fail if:
.TP
.BR EACCES
The shared memory object exists and the permissions specified by
.IR oflag
are denied, or the shared memory object does not exist and permission
to create the shared memory object is denied, or O_TRUNC is specified
and write permission is denied.
.TP
.BR EEXIST
O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set and
the named shared memory object already exists.
.TP
.BR EINTR
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
operation was interrupted by a signal.
.TP
.BR EINVAL
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
operation is not supported for the given name.
.TP
.BR EMFILE
All file descriptors available to the process are currently open.
.TP
.BR ENFILE
Too many shared memory objects are currently open in the system.
.TP
.BR ENOENT
O_CREAT is not set and the named shared memory object does not exist.
.TP
.BR ENOSPC
There is insufficient space for the creation of the new shared memory
object.
.P
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
function may fail if:
.TP
.BR ENAMETOOLONG
.br
The length of the
.IR name
argument exceeds
{_POSIX_PATH_MAX}
on systems that do not support the XSI option
or exceeds
{_XOPEN_PATH_MAX}
on XSI systems,
or has a pathname component that is longer than
{_POSIX_NAME_MAX}
on systems that do not support the XSI option
or longer than
{_XOPEN_NAME_MAX}
on XSI systems.
.LP
.IR "The following sections are informative."
.SH EXAMPLES
.SS "Creating and Mapping a Shared Memory Object"
.P
The following code segment demonstrates the use of
\fIshm_open\fR()
to create a shared memory object which is then sized using
\fIftruncate\fR()
before being mapped into the process address space using
\fImmap\fR():
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\fB
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
\&...
.P
#define MAX_LEN 10000
struct region {        /* Defines "structure" of shared memory */
    int len;
    char buf[MAX_LEN];
};
struct region *rptr;
int fd;
.P
/* Create shared memory object and set its size */
.P
fd = shm_open("/myregion", O_CREAT | O_RDWR, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
if (fd == \(mi1)
    /* Handle error */;
.P
if (ftruncate(fd, sizeof(struct region)) == \(mi1)
    /* Handle error */;
.P
/* Map shared memory object */
.P
rptr = mmap(NULL, sizeof(struct region),
       PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
if (rptr == MAP_FAILED)
    /* Handle error */;
.P
/* Now we can refer to mapped region using fields of rptr;
   for example, rptr->len */
\&...
.fi \fR
.P
.RE
.SH "APPLICATION USAGE"
None.
.SH RATIONALE
When the Memory Mapped Files option is supported, the normal
\fIopen\fR()
call is used to obtain a descriptor to a file to be mapped according to
existing practice with
\fImmap\fR().
When the Shared Memory Objects option is supported, the
\fIshm_open\fR()
function shall obtain a descriptor to the shared memory object
to be mapped.
.P
There is ample precedent for having a file descriptor represent several
types of objects. In the POSIX.1\(hy1990 standard, a file descriptor can represent a
file, a pipe, a FIFO, a tty, or a directory. Many implementations
simply have an operations vector, which is indexed by the file
descriptor type and does very different operations. Note that in some
cases the file descriptor passed to generic operations on file
descriptors is returned by
\fIopen\fR()
or
\fIcreat\fR()
and in some cases returned by alternate functions, such as
\fIpipe\fR().
The latter technique is used by
\fIshm_open\fR().
.P
Note that such shared memory objects can actually be implemented as
mapped files. In both cases, the size can be set after the open using
\fIftruncate\fR().
The
\fIshm_open\fR()
function itself does not create a shared object of a specified size
because this would duplicate an extant function that set the size of
an object referenced by a file descriptor.
.P
On implementations where memory objects are implemented using the
existing file system, the
\fIshm_open\fR()
function may be implemented using a macro that invokes
\fIopen\fR(),
and the
\fIshm_unlink\fR()
function may be implemented using a macro that invokes
\fIunlink\fR().
.P
For implementations without a permanent file system, the definition of
the name of the memory objects is allowed not to survive a system
reboot. Note that this allows systems with a permanent file system to
implement memory objects as data structures internal to the
implementation as well.
.P
On implementations that choose to implement memory objects using memory
directly, a
\fIshm_open\fR()
followed by an
\fIftruncate\fR()
and
\fIclose\fR()
can be used to preallocate a shared memory area and to set the size of
that preallocation. This may be necessary for systems without virtual
memory hardware support in order to ensure that the memory is
contiguous.
.P
The set of valid open flags to
\fIshm_open\fR()
was restricted to O_RDONLY, O_RDWR, O_CREAT, and O_TRUNC
because these could be easily implemented on most memory mapping
systems. This volume of POSIX.1\(hy2008 is silent on the results if the implementation
cannot supply the requested file access because of
implementation-defined reasons, including hardware ones.
.P
The error conditions
.BR [EACCES] 
and
.BR [ENOTSUP] 
are provided to inform the application that the implementation cannot
complete a request.
.P
.BR [EACCES] 
indicates for implementation-defined reasons, probably
hardware-related, that the implementation cannot comply with a
requested mode because it conflicts with another requested mode. An
example might be that an application desires to open a memory object
two times, mapping different areas with different access modes. If the
implementation cannot map a single area into a process space in two
places, which would be required if different access modes were required
for the two areas, then the implementation may inform the application
at the time of the second open.
.P
.BR [ENOTSUP] 
indicates for implementation-defined reasons, probably
hardware-related, that the implementation cannot comply with a
requested mode at all. An example would be that the hardware of the
implementation cannot support write-only shared memory areas.
.P
On all implementations, it may be desirable to restrict the location of
the memory objects to specific file systems for performance (such as a
RAM disk) or implementation-defined reasons (shared memory supported
directly only on certain file systems). The
\fIshm_open\fR()
function may be used to enforce these restrictions. There are a number
of methods available to the application to determine an appropriate
name of the file or the location of an appropriate directory. One way
is from the environment via
\fIgetenv\fR().
Another would be from a configuration file.
.P
This volume of POSIX.1\(hy2008 specifies that memory objects have initial contents of
zero when created. This is consistent with current behavior for both
files and newly allocated memory. For those implementations that use
physical memory, it would be possible that such implementations could
simply use available memory and give it to the process uninitialized.
This, however, is not consistent with standard behavior for the
uninitialized data area, the stack, and of course, files. Finally, it
is highly desirable to set the allocated memory to zero for security
reasons. Thus, initializing memory objects to zero is required.
.SH "FUTURE DIRECTIONS"
A future version might require the
\fIshm_open\fR()
and
\fIshm_unlink\fR()
functions to have semantics similar to normal file system operations.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR "\fIclose\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIdup\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIexec\fR\^",
.IR "\fIfcntl\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fImmap\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIshmat\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIshmctl\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIshmdt\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIshm_unlink\fR\^(\|)",
.IR "\fIumask\fR\^(\|)"
.P
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1\(hy2008,
.IR "\fB<fcntl.h>\fP",
.IR "\fB<sys_mman.h>\fP"
.SH COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
(This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.unix.org/online.html .

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