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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | ATTRIBUTES | CONFORMING TO | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
SEM_WAIT(3) Linux Programmer's Manual SEM_WAIT(3)
sem_wait, sem_timedwait, sem_trywait - lock a semaphore
#include <semaphore.h>
int sem_wait(sem_t *sem);
int sem_trywait(sem_t *sem);
int sem_timedwait(sem_t *sem, const struct timespec *abs_timeout);
Link with -pthread.
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
sem_timedwait(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
sem_wait() decrements (locks) the semaphore pointed to by sem. If
the semaphore's value is greater than zero, then the decrement
proceeds, and the function returns, immediately. If the semaphore
currently has the value zero, then the call blocks until either it
becomes possible to perform the decrement (i.e., the semaphore value
rises above zero), or a signal handler interrupts the call.
sem_trywait() is the same as sem_wait(), except that if the decrement
cannot be immediately performed, then call returns an error (errno
set to EAGAIN) instead of blocking.
sem_timedwait() is the same as sem_wait(), except that abs_timeout
specifies a limit on the amount of time that the call should block if
the decrement cannot be immediately performed. The abs_timeout
argument points to a structure that specifies an absolute timeout in
seconds and nanoseconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
(UTC). This structure is defined as follows:
struct timespec {
time_t tv_sec; /* Seconds */
long tv_nsec; /* Nanoseconds [0 .. 999999999] */
};
If the timeout has already expired by the time of the call, and the
semaphore could not be locked immediately, then sem_timedwait() fails
with a timeout error (errno set to ETIMEDOUT).
If the operation can be performed immediately, then sem_timedwait()
never fails with a timeout error, regardless of the value of
abs_timeout. Furthermore, the validity of abs_timeout is not checked
in this case.
All of these functions return 0 on success; on error, the value of
the semaphore is left unchanged, -1 is returned, and errno is set to
indicate the error.
EINTR The call was interrupted by a signal handler; see signal(7).
EINVAL sem is not a valid semaphore.
The following additional error can occur for sem_trywait():
EAGAIN The operation could not be performed without blocking (i.e.,
the semaphore currently has the value zero).
The following additional errors can occur for sem_timedwait():
EINVAL The value of abs_timeout.tv_nsecs is less than 0, or greater
than or equal to 1000 million.
ETIMEDOUT
The call timed out before the semaphore could be locked.
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
attributes(7).
┌───────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
│Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
│sem_wait(), sem_trywait(), │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
│sem_timedwait() │ │ │
└───────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
The (somewhat trivial) program shown below operates on an unnamed
semaphore. The program expects two command-line arguments. The
first argument specifies a seconds value that is used to set an alarm
timer to generate a SIGALRM signal. This handler performs a
sem_post(3) to increment the semaphore that is being waited on in
main() using sem_timedwait(). The second command-line argument
specifies the length of the timeout, in seconds, for sem_timedwait().
The following shows what happens on two different runs of the
program:
$ ./a.out 2 3
About to call sem_timedwait()
sem_post() from handler
sem_timedwait() succeeded
$ ./a.out 2 1
About to call sem_timedwait()
sem_timedwait() timed out
Program source
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <signal.h>
sem_t sem;
#define handle_error(msg) \
do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)
static void
handler(int sig)
{
write(STDOUT_FILENO, "sem_post() from handler\n", 24);
if (sem_post(&sem) == -1) {
write(STDERR_FILENO, "sem_post() failed\n", 18);
_exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct sigaction sa;
struct timespec ts;
int s;
if (argc != 3) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <alarm-secs> <wait-secs>\n",
argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if (sem_init(&sem, 0, 0) == -1)
handle_error("sem_init");
/* Establish SIGALRM handler; set alarm timer using argv[1] */
sa.sa_handler = handler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
sa.sa_flags = 0;
if (sigaction(SIGALRM, &sa, NULL) == -1)
handle_error("sigaction");
alarm(atoi(argv[1]));
/* Calculate relative interval as current time plus
number of seconds given argv[2] */
if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ts) == -1)
handle_error("clock_gettime");
ts.tv_sec += atoi(argv[2]);
printf("main() about to call sem_timedwait()\n");
while ((s = sem_timedwait(&sem, &ts)) == -1 && errno == EINTR)
continue; /* Restart if interrupted by handler */
/* Check what happened */
if (s == -1) {
if (errno == ETIMEDOUT)
printf("sem_timedwait() timed out\n");
else
perror("sem_timedwait");
} else
printf("sem_timedwait() succeeded\n");
exit((s == 0) ? EXIT_SUCCESS : EXIT_FAILURE);
}
clock_gettime(2), sem_getvalue(3), sem_post(3), sem_overview(7),
time(7)
This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2017-03-13 SEM_WAIT(3)
Pages that refer to this page: prctl(2), sem_close(3), sem_destroy(3), sem_getvalue(3), sem_init(3), sem_open(3), sem_post(3), sem_unlink(3), sem_overview(7), signal(7)