12-02-2007
File Descriptor Table
Im working on writing a small operating system. I am currently working on implementing dup, dup2, pipe, and close and I need to implement some type of file descriptor table in my PCB.
I was wondering if there is anyone who is familiar with linux/unix implementation of these tables who could explain to me a little about how they are implemented. I know basically how it works, what I am really having a little trouble with now is how file descriptors are mapped to input/output streams. Are their pointers to the pipe / device, or is there some other way its done? Thanks.
-shane
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DUP(2) BSD System Calls Manual DUP(2)
NAME
dup, dup2 -- duplicate an existing file descriptor
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
dup(int oldd);
int
dup2(int oldd, int newd);
DESCRIPTION
The dup() system call duplicates an existing object descriptor and returns its value to the calling process (newd = dup(oldd)). The argument
oldd is a small non-negative integer index in the per-process descriptor table. The value must be less than the size of the table, which is
returned by getdtablesize(2). The new descriptor returned by the call is the lowest numbered descriptor currently not in use by the process.
The object referenced by the descriptor does not distinguish between oldd and newd in any way. Thus if newd and oldd are duplicate refer-
ences to an open file, read(2), write(2) and lseek(2) calls all move a single pointer into the file, and append mode, non-blocking I/O and
asynchronous I/O options are shared between the references. If a separate pointer into the file is desired, a different object reference to
the file must be obtained by issuing an additional open(2) system call. The close-on-exec flag on the new file descriptor is unset.
In dup2(), the value of the new descriptor newd is specified. If this descriptor is already in use and oldd != newd, the descriptor is first
deallocated as if the close(2) system call had been used. If oldd is not a valid descriptor, then newd is not closed. If oldd == newd and
oldd is a valid descriptor, then dup2() is successful, and does nothing.
RETURN VALUES
The value -1 is returned if an error occurs in either call. The external variable errno indicates the cause of the error.
ERRORS
The dup() and dup2() system calls fail if:
[EBADF] The oldd or newd argument is not a valid active descriptor
[EMFILE] Too many descriptors are active.
SEE ALSO
accept(2), close(2), fcntl(2), getdtablesize(2), open(2), pipe(2), socket(2), socketpair(2)
STANDARDS
The dup() and dup2() system calls are expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (``POSIX.1'').
HISTORY
The dup() and dup2() functions appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
BSD
June 4, 1993 BSD