On linux and macOS, directories can be nested to seemingly arbitrary depth, as demonstrated by the following C program. However, on macOS but not on linux, there seems to be a hard limit on the nesting level returned by getcwd, specifically a nesting level of 256. When that limit is reached, getcwd returns ENOENT, a rather strange error code. Where does this limit come from? Is there a way around it?
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
void fail(char *msg) { perror(msg); exit(1); }
void create_nested_dirs(int n) {
int i;
char name[10];
char cwd[10000];
if (chdir("/tmp") < 0) fail("chdir(\"/tmp\")");
for (i=2; i<=n; i++) {
sprintf(name, "%09d", i);
printf("%s\n",name);
if (mkdir(name, 0777) < 0 && errno != EEXIST) fail("mkdir");
if (chdir(name) < 0) fail("chdir(name)");
if (getcwd(cwd, sizeof(cwd)) == NULL) fail("getcwd");
printf("cwd = \"%s\" strlen(cwd)=%d\n", cwd, strlen(cwd));
}
}
int main() {
long ret = pathconf("/", _PC_PATH_MAX);
printf("PATH_MAX is %ld\n", ret);
create_nested_dirs(300);
return 0;
}
Update
The above program was updated to print the value returned by pathconf("/", _PC_PATH_MAX) and to print the length of the path returned by getcwd.
On my machine running macOS Mojave 10.14, the PATH_MAX is 1024 and the longest string correctly returned by getcwd is 2542 characters long. Then a 2552 character long directory of nesting depth 256 is created by mkdir and then after a successful chdir to that directory a getcwd fails with ENOENT.
If the sprintf(name, "%09d", i); is changed to sprintf(name, "%03d", i); the paths are considerably shorter but the getcwd still fails when the directory nesting depth reaches 256.
So the limiting factor here is the nesting depth, not PATH_MAX.
My understanding of the source code here is that the meat of the work is done by the call fcntl(fd, F_GETPATH, b) so the problem may be in fcntl.
Related
According to strace, lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END) = 9223372036854775807 when fd refers to a directory. Why is this syscall succeeding at all? What does lseek() mean for a dir fd?
On my test system, if you use opendir(), and readdir() through all the entries in the directory, telldir() then returns the same value:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <dirent.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int fd = open(".", O_RDONLY);
if (fd < 0) {
perror("open");
return 1;
}
off_t o = lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
if (o == (off_t)-1) {
perror("lseek");
return 1;
}
printf("Via lseek: %ld\n", (long)o);
close(fd);
DIR *d = opendir(".");
if (!d) {
perror("opendir");
return 1;
}
while (readdir(d)) {
}
printf("via telldir: %ld\n", telldir(d));
closedir(d);
return 0;
}
outputs
Via lseek: 9223372036854775807
via telldir: 9223372036854775807
Quoting from the telldir(3) man page:
In early filesystems, the value returned by telldir() was a simple file offset within a directory. Modern filesystems use tree or hash structures, rather than flat tables, to represent directories. On such filesystems, the value returned by telldir() (and used internally by readdir(3)) is a "cookie" that is used by the implementation to derive a position within a directory. Application programs should treat this strictly as an opaque value, making no assumptions about its contents.
It's a magic number that indicates that the index into the directory's contents is at the end. Don't count on the number always being the same, or being portable. It's a black box. And stick with the dirent API for traversing directory contents unless you really know exactly what you're doing (Under the hood on Linux + glibc, opendir(3) calls openat(2) on the directory, readdir(3) fetches information about its contents with getdents(2), and seekdir(3) calls lseek(2), but that's just implementation details)
I get bus error (core dumped) when trying to write to memory. I want to write to a binary file using mmap() and open() functions in Linux. I want to write integers from 1 to 100 in the binary file by mapping it to memory instead of writing to the file directly.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define FILE_SIZE 0x100
int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
int fd;
void *pmap;
printf("im here");
//fd=open(argv[1],O_RDWR|O_CREAT,S_IRUSR|S_IWUSR);
fd=open("numbers.raw",O_RDWR);
if(fd == -1)
{
perror("open");
exit(1);
}
lseek(fd,FILE_SIZE+1,SEEK_SET); //checking the file length
lseek(fd,0,SEEK_SET);//points to start of the file
//create the memory mapping
pmap = mmap(0,FILE_SIZE,PROT_WRITE,MAP_SHARED,fd,0);
if(pmap == MAP_FAILED)
{
perror("mmap") ;
close(fd);
exit(1);
}
close(fd);
for(int i=1;i<=100;i++)
sprintf(pmap,"%d",i);
return 0;
}
Your comment says you are "checking the file length" but you never check the return value of that call. I'd bet it is failing since your file is not large enough, hence the bus error later.
There are multiple other unrelated mistakes in your file as well, by
the way:
Your file size assumes 0x100 bytes are enough to store 100 integers in binary. This is not the case for 64 bit systems.
You aren't actually storing binary numbers - you are storing strings of the numbers.
You aren't advancing where you write, so you write all the numbers at the start of the file, one on top of the other.
Why output of ls executed here is not colored?
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pty.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv ) {
termios termp; winsize winp;
int amaster; char name[128];
if (forkpty(&amaster, name, &termp, &winp) == 0) {
system("ls"); // "ls --color" will work here!
return 0;
}
wait(0);
char buf[128]; int size;
while (1) {
size = read(amaster, buf, 127);
if (size <= 0) break;
buf[size] = 0;
printf("%s", buf);
}
return 0;
}
According to man (and ls.c that I am inspecting) it should be colored if isatty() returns true. After forkpty() it must be true. Besides, ls DOES output in columnized mode in this example! Which means it feels it has tty as output.
Of course I do not want only ls to output color, but an arbitrary program to feel that it has real color enabled tty behind.
I just wrote a simple test:
#include <unistd.h>
int main() {
printf("%i%i%i%i%i\n", isatty(0), isatty(1), isatty(2), isatty(3), isatty(4));
}
and call it in a child part of forkpty, and it displays 11100, which means ls should be colored!
OK, as it seems the fact that ls produces no color output has nothing to do with forkpty(). It is just not color enabled by default. But now, maybe that's another question, why it is not color if it just checks isatty()?
I want to create a file and map it into memory. I think that my code will work but when I run it I'm getting a "bus error". I searched google but I'm not sure how to fix the problem. Here is my code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void)
{
int file_fd,page_size;
char buffer[10]="perfect";
char *map;
file_fd=open("/tmp/test.txt",O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC ,(mode_t)0600);
if(file_fd == -1)
{
perror("open");
return 2;
}
page_size = getpagesize();
map = mmap(0,page_size,PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,MAP_SHARED,file_fd,page_size);
if(map == MAP_FAILED)
{
perror("mmap");
return 3;
}
strcpy(map, buffer);
munmap(map, page_size);
close(file_fd);
return 0;
}
You are creating a new zero sized file, you can't extend the file size with mmap. You'll get a bus error when you try to write outside the content of the file.
Use e.g. fallocate() on the file descriptor to allocate room in the file.
Note that you're also passing the page_size as the offset to mmap, which doesn't seem to make much sense in your example, you'll have to first extend the file to pagesize + strlen(buffer) + 1 if you want to write buf at that location. More likely you want to start at the beginning of the file, so pass 0 as the last argument to mmap.
this command is really very useful but where I can get the source code to see what is going on inside .
thanks .
The tail utility is part of the coreutils on linux.
Source tarball: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.4.tar.gz
Source file: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/tail.c (original http link)
I've always found FreeBSD to have far clearer source code than the gnu utilities. So here's tail.c in the FreeBSD project:
http://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/usr.bin/tail/tail.c?view=markup
Poke around the uclinux site. Since they distributed the software, they are required to make the source available one way or another.
Or, you could read man fseek and guess at how it might be done.
NB-- See William's comments below, there are cases when you can't use seek.
You might find it an interesting exercise to write your own. The vast majority of the Unix command-line tools are a page or so of fairly straightforward C code.
To just look at the code, the GNU CoreUtils sources are easily found on gnu.org or your favorite Linux mirror site.
/`*This example implements the option n of tail command.*/`
#define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <getopt.h>
#define BUFF_SIZE 4096
FILE *openFile(const char *filePath)
{
FILE *file;
file= fopen(filePath, "r");
if(file == NULL)
{
fprintf(stderr,"Error opening file: %s\n",filePath);
exit(errno);
}
return(file);
}
void printLine(FILE *file, off_t startline)
{
int fd;
fd= fileno(file);
int nread;
char buffer[BUFF_SIZE];
lseek(fd,(startline + 1),SEEK_SET);
while((nread= read(fd,buffer,BUFF_SIZE)) > 0)
{
write(STDOUT_FILENO, buffer, nread);
}
}
void walkFile(FILE *file, long nlines)
{
off_t fposition;
fseek(file,0,SEEK_END);
fposition= ftell(file);
off_t index= fposition;
off_t end= fposition;
long countlines= 0;
char cbyte;
for(index; index >= 0; index --)
{
cbyte= fgetc(file);
if (cbyte == '\n' && (end - index) > 1)
{
countlines ++;
if(countlines == nlines)
{
break;
}
}
fposition--;
fseek(file,fposition,SEEK_SET);
}
printLine(file, fposition);
fclose(file);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
FILE *file;
file= openFile(argv[2]);
walkFile(file, atol(argv[1]));
return 0;
}
/*Note: take in mind that i not wrote code to parse input options and arguments, neither code to check if the lines number argument is really a number.*/