[c] How can you flush a write using a file descriptor?

It turns out this whole misunderstanding of the open() versus fopen() stems from a buggy I2C driver in the Linux 2.6.14 kernel on an ARM. Backporting a working bit bashed driver solved the root cause of the problem I was trying to address here.

I'm trying to figure out an issue with a serial device driver in Linux (I2C). It appears that by adding timed OS pauses (sleeps) between writes and reads on the device things work ... (much) better.

Aside: The nature of I2C is that each byte read or written by the master is acknowledged by the device on the other end of the wire (slave) - the pauses improving things encourage me to think of the driver as working asynchronously - something that I can't reconcile with how the bus works. Anyhoo ...

I'd either like to flush the write to be sure (rather than using fixed duration pause), or somehow test that the write/read transaction has completed in an multi-threaded friendly way.

The trouble with using fflush(fd); is that it requires 'fd' to be stream pointer (not a file descriptor) i.e.

FILE * fd = fopen("filename","r+");
... // do read and writes
fflush(fd);

My problem is that I require the use of the ioctl(), which doesn't use a stream pointer. i.e.

int fd = open("filename",O_RDWR);
ioctl(fd,...);

Suggestions?

It sounds like what you are looking for is the fsync() function (or fdatasync()?), or you could use the O_SYNC flag in your open() call.

fflush() only flushes the buffering added by the stdio fopen() layer, as managed by the FILE * object. The underlying file itself, as seen by the kernel, is not buffered at this level. This means that writes that bypass the FILE * layer, using fileno() and a raw write(), are also not buffered in a way that fflush() would flush.

As others have pointed out, try not mixing the two. If you need to use "raw" I/O functions such as ioctl(), then open() the file yourself directly, without using fopen<() and friends from stdio.

I think what you are looking for may be

int fsync(int fd);

or

int fdatasync(int fd);

fsync will flush the file from kernel buffer to the disk. fdatasync will also do except for the meta data.

Have you tried disabling buffering?

setvbuf(fd, NULL, _IONBF, 0);

Have you tried disabling buffering?

setvbuf(fd, NULL, _IONBF, 0);

fflush() only flushes the buffering added by the stdio fopen() layer, as managed by the FILE * object. The underlying file itself, as seen by the kernel, is not buffered at this level. This means that writes that bypass the FILE * layer, using fileno() and a raw write(), are also not buffered in a way that fflush() would flush.

As others have pointed out, try not mixing the two. If you need to use "raw" I/O functions such as ioctl(), then open() the file yourself directly, without using fopen<() and friends from stdio.

If you want to go the other way round (associate FILE* with existing file descriptor), use fdopen() :

                                                          FDOPEN(P)

NAME

       fdopen - associate a stream with a file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdio.h>

       FILE *fdopen(int fildes, const char *mode);

It sounds like what you are looking for is the fsync() function (or fdatasync()?), or you could use the O_SYNC flag in your open() call.

fflush() only flushes the buffering added by the stdio fopen() layer, as managed by the FILE * object. The underlying file itself, as seen by the kernel, is not buffered at this level. This means that writes that bypass the FILE * layer, using fileno() and a raw write(), are also not buffered in a way that fflush() would flush.

As others have pointed out, try not mixing the two. If you need to use "raw" I/O functions such as ioctl(), then open() the file yourself directly, without using fopen<() and friends from stdio.

If you want to go the other way round (associate FILE* with existing file descriptor), use fdopen() :

                                                          FDOPEN(P)

NAME

       fdopen - associate a stream with a file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdio.h>

       FILE *fdopen(int fildes, const char *mode);

I think what you are looking for may be

int fsync(int fd);

or

int fdatasync(int fd);

fsync will flush the file from kernel buffer to the disk. fdatasync will also do except for the meta data.

If you want to go the other way round (associate FILE* with existing file descriptor), use fdopen() :

                                                          FDOPEN(P)

NAME

       fdopen - associate a stream with a file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdio.h>

       FILE *fdopen(int fildes, const char *mode);