CODEWITHSUNDEEP
clinux
woytekm
woytekm

Reputation: 102

How to flush a pipe created by pipe() on Linux?

I want to flush a pipe created by pipe() call on Linux, as i am interested only in data that will come after read() was called. I am trying following ioctl call:

ioctl_err = ioctl(G_MIDI_inout_event_pipe[0],I_FLUSH,FLUSHR);  
read(G_MIDI_inout_event_pipe[0],&event_type,1);

But ioctl returns ENOTTY and pipe is not flushed. How to properly flush such stream?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2675

Answers (1)

Jonathan Leffler
Jonathan Leffler

Reputation: 754560

There isn't a standard way to do it.

You could consider setting the non-blocking attribute on the pipe followed by a preliminary read() to clear the data, then reset the attribute to blocking before collecting the data you're really after. You'd have to attempt to read at least the pipe size — which can be as small as 4 KiB or can be much larger (64 KiB on Linux, IIRC). That's kinda fiddly, but it would 'work' with a minimal window of time between TOCTOU (time of check, time of use) — basically, the two read calls I'm postulating. That shouldn't matter to you; it was data written after the start of the reading process.

Upvotes: 1

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