Re: O_NONBLOCK is NOOP on block devices

[Alan Cox]

> If O_NONBLOCK is meaningful whatsoever (see man page docs for
> semantics) against block devices, one would expect a nonblocking io

It isn't...

The manual page says "When possible, the file is opened in non-blocking
mode" . Your write is probably not blocking - but the memory allocation
for it is forcing other data to disk to make room. ie it didn't block it
was just "slow".

O_NONBLOCK on a regular file does influence how it responds to leases and
mandatory locks.

> probably be documented for clarity and it would be straight forward
> for it to return an error if these contradictory behaviors are
> simultaneously specified, unintentionally of course.

and risk breaking existing apps.

> Thoughts anyone?


Alan
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