Block I/O Mystery

From: Block Device
Date: Fri Oct 07 2005 - 01:02:23 EST


Hi,
I am trying to write to inode blocks without using the VFS layer
(filp_open, f_op->write)
etc.
I could use __bread to read the inode blocks correctly. But when I'm
trying to write a block after changing it I face a strange problem.
My changes do not show up when I cat the file but if I use dd command on
the block device it shows my writes.

Steps I performed :

a) Created a file of 8K ( 2blocks ) and filled it with 'a'.
b) Read the blocks using __bread and print(k)ed the contents.
This worked correctly.
c) Called __getblk for a file block, locked the buffer, made
changes to it (memcpy),
marked buffer dirty, unlocked it and called sync_dirty_buffer.
d) If I try to see contents of the file ( cat or vi ) they are
shown unchanged, but if I
use dd on the raw device or use step b) to read a block the
changes made @ c)
are seen.

Also, if I unmount the filesystem and mount it again the changes are
visible through cat, vi etc.

Can someone explain what exactly is going wrong ?

I'm using the 2.6.13 kernel.

Thanks & Regards
-BD
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