xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/madvise.2 (revision 8b0f9554ff8762542c4defc4f70e1eb76fb508fa)
1.\"	$NetBSD: madvise.2,v 1.23 2006/10/13 20:52:08 wiz Exp $
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30.\"	@(#)madvise.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
31.\"
32.Dd October 7, 2006
33.Dt MADVISE 2
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm madvise
37.Nd give advice about use of memory
38.Sh LIBRARY
39.Lb libc
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.In sys/mman.h
42.Ft int
43.Fn madvise "void *addr" "size_t len" "int behav"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The
46.Fn madvise
47system call
48allows a process that has knowledge of its memory behavior
49to describe it to the system.
50The known behaviors are given in
51.Pa \*[Lt]sys/mman.h\*[Gt] :
52.Bd -literal
53#define	MADV_NORMAL	0	/* no further special treatment */
54#define	MADV_RANDOM	1	/* expect random page references */
55#define	MADV_SEQUENTIAL	2	/* expect sequential references */
56#define	MADV_WILLNEED	3	/* will need these pages */
57#define	MADV_DONTNEED	4	/* don't need these pages */
58#define	MADV_SPACEAVAIL	5	/* ensure that resources are reserved */
59#define	MADV_FREE	6	/* pages are empty, free them */
60.Ed
61.Sh RETURN VALUES
62Upon successful completion,
63a value of 0 is returned.
64Otherwise, a value of \-1 is returned and
65.Va errno
66is set to indicate the error.
67.Sh ERRORS
68.Fn madvise
69will fail if:
70.Bl -tag -width Er
71.It Bq Er EINVAL
72Invalid parameters were provided.
73.El
74.Sh SEE ALSO
75.Xr mincore 2 ,
76.Xr mprotect 2 ,
77.Xr msync 2 ,
78.Xr munmap 2
79.Sh HISTORY
80The
81.Nm madvise
82system call first appeared in
83.Bx 4.4 ,
84but until
85.Nx 1.5
86it did not perform any of the requests on, or change any behavior of the
87address range given.
88