tree 3f950814510422606821f1b0b373d65e4d9ed303
parent 6d18c9220965b437287c3a7e803725c24992ceac
author Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org> 1178860996 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@woody.linux-foundation.org> 1178897376 -0700

signal/timer/event: timerfd core

This patch introduces a new system call for timers events delivered though
file descriptors.  This allows timer event to be used with standard POSIX
poll(2), select(2) and read(2).  As a consequence of supporting the Linux
f_op->poll subsystem, they can be used with epoll(2) too.

The system call is defined as:

int timerfd(int ufd, int clockid, int flags, const struct itimerspec *utmr);

The "ufd" parameter allows for re-use (re-programming) of an existing timerfd
w/out going through the close/open cycle (same as signalfd).  If "ufd" is -1,
s new file descriptor will be created, otherwise the existing "ufd" will be
re-programmed.

The "clockid" parameter is either CLOCK_MONOTONIC or CLOCK_REALTIME.  The time
specified in the "utmr->it_value" parameter is the expiry time for the timer.

If the TFD_TIMER_ABSTIME flag is set in "flags", this is an absolute time,
otherwise it's a relative time.

If the time specified in the "utmr->it_interval" is not zero (.tv_sec == 0,
tv_nsec == 0), this is the period at which the following ticks should be
generated.

The "utmr->it_interval" should be set to zero if only one tick is requested.
Setting the "utmr->it_value" to zero will disable the timer, or will create a
timerfd without the timer enabled.

The function returns the new (or same, in case "ufd" is a valid timerfd
descriptor) file, or -1 in case of error.

As stated before, the timerfd file descriptor supports poll(2), select(2) and
epoll(2).  When a timer event happened on the timerfd, a POLLIN mask will be
returned.

The read(2) call can be used, and it will return a u32 variable holding the
number of "ticks" that happened on the interface since the last call to
read(2).  The read(2) call supportes the O_NONBLOCK flag too, and EAGAIN will
be returned if no ticks happened.

A quick test program, shows timerfd working correctly on my amd64 box:

http://www.xmailserver.org/timerfd-test.c

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: add sys_timerfd to sys_ni.c]
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>