[PATCH v2] man2/splice.2: document SPLICE_F_NOWAIT

From: Max Kellermann
Date: Tue Sep 26 2023 - 09:43:48 EST


Patch for SPLICE_F_NOWAIT submitted to LKML:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20230926063609.2451260-1-max.kellermann@xxxxxxxxx/

In the HISTORY section, I declared Linux 6.7 as the first version to
have this feature, but this is only speculation, because
SPLICE_F_NOWAIT is still under discussion and has not yet been merged.

Signed-off-by: Max Kellermann <max.kellermann@xxxxxxxxx>
---
man2/splice.2 | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/man2/splice.2 b/man2/splice.2
index e9a18e668..a07c001ac 100644
--- a/man2/splice.2
+++ b/man2/splice.2
@@ -89,13 +89,26 @@ call);
in the future, a correct implementation may be restored.
.TP
.B SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK
-Do not block on I/O.
+Do not block on I/O on pipes.
This makes the splice pipe operations nonblocking, but
.BR splice ()
may nevertheless block because the file descriptors that
are spliced to/from may block (unless they have the
.B O_NONBLOCK
-flag set).
+flag set or
+.B SPLICE_F_NOWAIT
+is specified).
+.TP
+.B SPLICE_F_NOWAIT
+If no data is immediately available on
+.I fd_in
+and it is not a pipe, do not wait (e.g. for backing storage or locks),
+but return immediately with
+.B EAGAIN.
+This is analogous to the
+.B RWF_NOWAIT
+flag of
+.BR preadv2 ().
.TP
.B SPLICE_F_MORE
More data will be coming in a subsequent splice.
@@ -138,6 +151,8 @@ is set to indicate the error.
.TP
.B EAGAIN
.B SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK
+or
+.B SPLICE_F_NOWAIT
was specified in
.I flags
or one of the file descriptors had been marked as nonblocking
@@ -192,6 +207,9 @@ was required to be a pipe.
Since Linux 2.6.31,
.\" commit 7c77f0b3f9208c339a4b40737bb2cb0f0319bb8d
both arguments may refer to pipes.
+.PP
+.B SPLICE_F_NOWAIT
+was added in Linux 6.7.
.SH NOTES
The three system calls
.BR splice (),
--
2.39.2