.\" $OpenBSD: msync.2,v 1.22 2014/02/13 07:30:39 guenther Exp $ .\" $NetBSD: msync.2,v 1.8 1995/10/12 15:41:09 jtc Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)msync.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: February 13 2014 $ .Dt MSYNC 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm msync .Nd synchronize a mapped region .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include .Fd #include .Ft int .Fn msync "void *addr" "size_t len" "int flags" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn msync system call writes all pages with shared modifications in the specified region of the process's address space back to permanent storage, and, if requested, invalidates cached data mapped in the region. If .Fa len is 0, all modified pages within the region containing .Fa addr will be flushed; if .Fa len is non-zero, only modified pages containing .Fa addr and .Fa len-1 succeeding locations will be flushed. Any required synchronization of memory caches will also take place at this time. Filesystem operations on a file that is mapped for shared modifications are unpredictable except after an .Fn msync . .Pp The .Fa flags argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following values: .Bd -literal -offset indent MS_ASYNC Perform asynchronous writes. MS_SYNC Perform synchronous writes. MS_INVALIDATE Invalidate cached data after writing. .Ed .Sh RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of \-1 is returned and .Va errno is set to indicate the error. .Sh ERRORS The following errors may be reported: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBUSY The .Dv MS_INVALIDATE flag was specified and a portion of the specified region was locked with .Xr mlock 2 . .It Bq Er EINVAL The specified .Fa flags argument was invalid. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa addr parameter was not page aligned or .Fa addr and .Fa size specify a region that would extend beyond the end of the address space. .It Bq Er ENOMEM Addresses in the specified region are outside the range allowed for the address space of the process, or specify one or more pages which are unmapped. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while writing. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr madvise 2 , .Xr mincore 2 , .Xr minherit 2 , .Xr mprotect 2 , .Xr munmap 2 .Sh HISTORY The .Fn msync function first appeared in .Bx 4.4 . It was modified to conform to .St -p1003.1b-93 .Sh BUGS Writes are currently done synchronously even if the .Dv MS_ASYNC flag is specified.