#include <linux/futex.h>
#include <syscall.h>
long get_robust_list(int pid, struct robust_list_head **head_ptr,
size_t *len_ptr);
long set_robust_list(struct robust_list_head *head, size_t len);
Note: There are no glibc wrappers for these system calls; see NOTES.
The purpose of the robust futex list is to ensure that if a thread accidentally fails to unlock a futex before terminating or calling execve(2), another thread that is waiting on that futex is notified that the former owner of the futex has died. This notification consists of two pieces: the FUTEX_OWNER_DIED bit is set in the futex word, and the kernel performs a futex(2) FUTEX_WAKE operation on one of the threads waiting on the futex.
The get_robust_list() system call returns the head of the robust futex list of the thread whose thread ID is specified in pid. If pid is 0, the head of the list for the calling thread is returned. The list head is stored in the location pointed to by head_ptr. The size of the object pointed to by **head_ptr is stored in len_ptr.
Permission to employ get_robust_list() is governed by a ptrace access mode PTRACE_MODE_READ_REALCREDS check; see ptrace(2).
The set_robust_list() system call requests the kernel to record the head of the list of robust futexes owned by the calling thread. The head argument is the list head to record. The len argument should be sizeof(*head).
The get_robust_list() system call can fail with the following errors:
A thread can have only one robust futex list; therefore applications that wish to use this functionality should use the robust mutexes provided by glibc.
In the initial implementation, a thread waiting on a futex was notified that the owner had died only if the owner terminated. Starting with Linux 2.6.28, notification was extended to include the case where the owner performs an execve(2).
The thread IDs mentioned in the main text are kernel thread IDs of the kind returned by clone(2) and gettid(2).
Documentation/robust-futexes.txt and Documentation/robust-futex-ABI.txt in the Linux kernel source tree