The lio_listio() function allows the calling process, LWP, or thread, to initiate a list of I/O requests within a single function call.

The mode argument takes one of the values LIO_WAIT or LIO_NOWAIT declared in <aio.h> and determines whether the function returns when the I/O operations have been completed, or as soon as the operations have been queued. If the mode argument is LIO_WAIT, the function waits until all I/O is complete and the sig argument is ignored.

If the mode argument is LIO_NOWAIT, the function returns immediately, and asynchronous notification occurs, according to the sig argument, when all the I/O operations complete. If sig is NULL, or the sigev_signo member of the sigevent structure referenced by sig is zero, then no asynchronous notification occurs. If sig is not NULL, asynchronous notification occurs when all the requests in list have completed. If sig->sigev_notify is SIGEV_NONE, then no signal will be posted upon I/O completion, but the error status and the return status for the operation will be set appropriately. If sig->sigev_notify is SIGEV_SIGNAL, then the signal specified in sig->sigev_signo will be sent to the process. If the SA_SIGINFO flag is set for that signal number, then the signal will be queued to the process and the value specified in sig->sigev_value will be the si_value component of the generated signal (see siginfo(3HEAD)).

The list argument is an array of pointers to aiocb structures. The array contains nent elements. The array may contain null elements, which are ignored.

The aio_lio_opcode field of each aiocb structure specifies the operation to be performed. The supported operations are LIO_READ, LIO_WRITE, and LIO_NOP; these symbols are defined in <aio.h>. The LIO_NOP operation causes the list entry to be ignored. If the aio_lio_opcode element is equal to LIO_READ, then an I/O operation is submitted as if by a call to aio_read(3RT) with the aiocbp equal to the address of the aiocb structure. If the aio_lio_opcode element is equal to LIO_WRITE, then an I/O operation is submitted as if by a call to aio_write(3RT) with the aiocbp equal to the address of the aiocb structure.

The aio_fildes member specifies the file descriptor on which the operation is to be performed.

The aio_buf member specifies the address of the buffer to or from which the data is to be transferred.

The aio_nbytes member specifies the number of bytes of data to be transferred.

The members of the aiocb structure further describe the I/O operation to be performed, in a manner identical to that of the corresponding aiocb structure when used by the aio_read(3RT) and aio_write(3RT) functions.

The nent argument specifies how many elements are members of the list, that is, the length of the array.

The behavior of this function is altered according to the definitions of synchronized I/O data integrity completion and synchronized I/O file integrity completion if synchronized I/O is enabled on the file associated with aio_fildes. (see fcntl(3HEAD) definitions of O_DSYNC and O_SYNC.)

For regular files, no data transfer will occur past the offset maximum established in the open file description associated with aiocbp->aio_fildes.

If the mode argument has the value LIO_NOWAIT, and the I/O operations are successfully queued, lio_listio() returns 0; otherwise, it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

If the mode argument has the value LIO_WAIT, and all the indicated I/O has completed successfully, lio_listio() returns 0; otherwise, it returns -1, and sets errno to indicate the error.

In either case, the return value only indicates the success or failure of the lio_listio() call itself, not the status of the individual I/O requests. In some cases, one or more of the I/O requests contained in the list may fail. Failure of an individual request does not prevent completion of any other individual request. To determine the outcome of each I/O request, the application must examine the error status associated with each aiocb control block. Each error status so returned is identical to that returned as a result of an aio_read(3RT) or aio_write(3RT) function.

The lio_listio() function will fail if:

EAGAIN

The resources necessary to queue all the I/O requests were not available. The error status for each request is recorded in the aio_error member of the corresponding aiocb structure, and can be retrieved using aio_error(3RT).

EAGAIN

The number of entries indicated by nent would cause the system-wide limit AIO_MAX to be exceeded.

EINVAL

The mode argument is an improper value, or the value of nent is greater than AIO_LISTIO_MAX.

EINTR

A signal was delivered while waiting for all I/O requests to complete during an LIO_WAIT operation. Note that, since each I/O operation invoked by lio_listio() may possibly provoke a signal when it completes, this error return may be caused by the completion of one (or more) of the very I/O operations being awaited. Outstanding I/O requests are not canceled, and the application can use aio_fsync(3RT) to determine if any request was initiated; aio_return(3RT) to determine if any request has completed; or aio_error(3RT) to determine if any request was canceled.

EIO

One or more of the individual I/O operations failed. The application can use aio_error(3RT) to check the error status for each aiocb structure to determine the individual request(s) that failed.

ENOSYS

The lio_listio() function is not supported by the system.

In addition to the errors returned by the lio_listio() function, if the lio_listio() function succeeds or fails with errors of EAGAIN, EINTR, or EIO, then some of the I/O specified by the list may have been initiated. If the lio_listio() function fails with an error code other than EAGAIN, EINTR, or EIO, no operations from the list have been initiated. The I/O operation indicated by each list element can encounter errors specific to the individual read or write function being performed. In this event, the error status for each aiocb control block contains the associated error code. The error codes that can be set are the same as would be set by a read(2) or write(2) function, with the following additional error codes possible:

EAGAIN

The requested I/O operation was not queued due to resource limitations.

ECANCELED

The requested I/O was canceled before the I/O completed due to an explicit aio_cancel(3RT) request.

EFBIG

The aiocbp->aio_lio_opcode is LIO_WRITE, the file is a regular file, aiocbp->aio_nbytes is greater than 0, and the aiocbp->aio_offset is greater than or equal to the offset maximum in the open file description associated with aiocbp->aio_fildes.

EINPROGRESS

The requested I/O is in progress.

EOVERFLOW

The aiocbp->aio_lio_opcode is LIO_READ, the file is a regular file, aiocbp->aio_nbytes is greater than 0, and the aiocbp->aio_offset is before the end-of-file and is greater than or equal to the offset maximum in the open file description associated with aiocbp->aio_fildes.

The lio_listio() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit file offsets. See lf64(5).

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

close(2), exec(2), exit(2), fork(2), lseek(2), read(2), write(2), aio_cancel(3RT), aio_fsync(3RT), aio_read(3RT), aio_return(3RT), attributes(5), aio(3HEAD), fcntl(3HEAD), lf64(5), siginfo(3HEAD), signal(3HEAD)

Solaris 2.6 was the first release to support the Asynchronous Input and Output option. Prior to this release, this function always returned -1 and set errno to ENOSYS.