path: root/share/man/man9/sleep.9

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.Dd December 17, 1998
.Os
.Dt SLEEP 9
.Sh NAME
.Nm msleep ,
.Nm msleep_spin ,
.Nm tsleep ,
.Nm wakeup
.Nd wait for events
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/param.h
.In sys/systm.h
.In sys/proc.h
.Ft int
.Fn tsleep "void *chan" "int priority" "const char *wmesg" "int timo"
.Ft int
.Fn msleep "void *chan" "struct mtx *mtx" "int priority" "const char *wmesg" "int timo"
.Ft int
.Fn msleep_spin "void *chan" "struct mtx *mtx" "const char *wmesg" "int timo"
.Ft void
.Fn wakeup "void *chan"
.Ft void
.Fn wakeup_one "void *chan"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The functions
.Fn tsleep ,
.Fn msleep ,
.Fn msleep_spin ,
.Fn wakeup ,
and
.Fn wakeup_one
handle event-based thread blocking.
If a thread must wait for an
external event, it is put to sleep by
.Fn tsleep ,
.Fn msleep ,
or
.Fn msleep_spin .
The parameter
.Fa chan
is an arbitrary address that uniquely identifies the event on which
the thread is being asleep.
All threads sleeping on a single
.Fa chan
are woken up later by
.Fn wakeup ,
often called from inside an interrupt routine, to indicate that the
resource the thread was blocking on is available now.
.Pp
The parameter
.Fa wmesg
is a string describing the sleep condition for tools like
.Xr ps 1 .
Due to the limited space of those programs to display arbitrary strings,
this message should not be longer than 6 characters.
.Pp
The
.Fn wakeup_one
function is used to make the first thread in the queue that is
sleeping on the parameter
.Fa chan
runnable.
This can prevent the system from becoming saturated
when a large number of threads are sleeping on the same address,
but only one of them can actually do any useful work when made
runnable.
.Pp
The
.Fn msleep
function is the general sleep call.
It suspends the current thread until a wakeup is
performed on the specified identifier.
The
.Fa mtx
parameter is a mutex which will be released before sleeping and reacquired
before
.Fn msleep
returns.
If
.Fa priority
includes the
.Dv PDROP
flag, the
.Fa mtx
parameter will not be reacquired before returning.
The mutex is used to ensure that a condition can be checked atomically,
and that the current thread can be suspended without missing a
change to the condition, or an associated wakeup.
If
.Fa priority
is not 0,
then the thread will be made
runnable with the specified
.Fa priority
when it resumes.
If
.Fa timo
is not 0,
then the thread will sleep for at most
.Fa timo
\&/ hz seconds.
If the
.Va Giant
lock is not held and
.Fa mtx
is
.Dv NULL ,
then
.Fa timo
must be non-zero.
If
.Fa priority
includes the
.Dv PCATCH
flag, signals are checked before and after sleeping, otherwise signals are
not checked.
The
.Fn msleep
function returns 0 if awakened,
.Er EWOULDBLOCK
if the timeout expires.
If
.Dv PCATCH
is set and a signal needs to be delivered,
.Er ERESTART
is returned if the current system call should be restarted if
possible, and
.Er EINTR
is returned if the system call should be interrupted by the signal
(return
.Er EINTR ) .
.Pp
The
.Fn tsleep
function is a variation on
.Fn msleep .
It is identical to invoking
.Fn msleep
with a
.Dv NULL
.Fa mtx
parameter.
.Pp
The
.Fn msleep_spin
function is another variation on
.Fn msleep .
This function accepts a spin mutex rather than a default mutex for its
.Fa mtx
parameter.
It is also more limited in that it does not accept a
.Fa priority
parameter.
Thus, it will not change the priority of a sleeping thread,
and it does not support the
.Dv PDROP
and
.Dv PCATCH
flags.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
See above.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ps 1 ,
.Xr malloc 9 ,
.Xr mi_switch 9
.Sh HISTORY
The sleep/wakeup thread synchronization mechanism is very old.
It
appeared in a very early version of
.Ux .
.Pp
The
.Fn tsleep
function appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .
The
.Fn wakeup_one
function appeared in
.Fx 2.2 .
The
.Fn msleep
function appeared in
.Fx 5.0 ,
and the
.Fn msleep_spin
function appeared in
.Fx 7.0 .
.Pp
The
.Fn sleep
function used to be the traditional form.
It did not let you specify a timeout or a
.Fa wmesg ,
hence it was discontinued.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
This manual page was written by
.An J\(:org Wunsch Aq joerg@FreeBSD.org .