Finding open file descriptors for a process linux ( C code )?

Question

I wanted to find all fds opened for a process in linux.

Can I do it with glib library functions ?

Answer 1

Here's some code I used to use, I didn't know about /proc/self (thx Donal!), but this way is probably more generic anyway. I've included the required includes for all the functions at the top.

#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/resource.h>

#ifndef FALSE
#define FALSE (0)
#endif
#ifndef TRUE
#define TRUE (!FALSE)
#endif

/* implementation of Donal Fellows method */ 
int get_num_fds()
{
     int fd_count;
     char buf[64];
     struct dirent *dp;

     snprintf(buf, 64, "/proc/%i/fd/", getpid());

     fd_count = 0;
     DIR *dir = opendir(buf);
     while ((dp = readdir(dir)) != NULL) {
          fd_count++;
     }
     closedir(dir);
     return fd_count;
}

I went through a very bad problem with leaking file handles once, and it turns out I actually coded the solution Tom H. suggested:

/* check whether a file-descriptor is valid */
int pth_util_fd_valid(int fd)
{
     if (fd < 3 || fd >= FD_SETSIZE)
          return FALSE;
     if (fcntl(fd, F_GETFL) == -1 && errno == EBADF)
          return FALSE;
     return TRUE;
}

/* check first 1024 (usual size of FD_SESIZE) file handles */
int test_fds()
{
     int i;
     int fd_dup;
     char errst[64];
     for (i = 0; i < FD_SETSIZE; i++) {
          *errst = 0;
          fd_dup = dup(i);
          if (fd_dup == -1) {
                strcpy(errst, strerror(errno));
                // EBADF  oldfd isn’t an open file descriptor, or newfd is out of the allowed range for file descriptors.
                // EBUSY  (Linux only) This may be returned by dup2() during a race condition with open(2) and dup().
                // EINTR  The dup2() call was interrupted by a signal; see signal(7).
                // EMFILE The process already has the maximum number of file descriptors open and tried to open a new one.
          } else {
                close(fd_dup);
                strcpy(errst, "dup() ok");
          }
          printf("%4i: %5i %24s %s\n", i, fcntl(i, F_GETOWN), fd_info(i), errst);
     }
     return 0;
}

You'll probably want these too, to satisfy the last printf above...

char *fcntl_flags(int flags)
{
    static char output[128];
    *output = 0;

    if (flags & O_RDONLY)
        strcat(output, "O_RDONLY ");
    if (flags & O_WRONLY)
        strcat(output, "O_WRONLY ");
    if (flags & O_RDWR)
        strcat(output, "O_RDWR ");
    if (flags & O_CREAT)
        strcat(output, "O_CREAT ");
    if (flags & O_EXCL)
        strcat(output, "O_EXCL ");
    if (flags & O_NOCTTY)
        strcat(output, "O_NOCTTY ");
    if (flags & O_TRUNC)
        strcat(output, "O_TRUNC ");
    if (flags & O_APPEND)
        strcat(output, "O_APPEND ");
    if (flags & O_NONBLOCK)
        strcat(output, "O_NONBLOCK ");
    if (flags & O_SYNC)
        strcat(output, "O_SYNC ");
    if (flags & O_ASYNC)
        strcat(output, "O_ASYNC ");

    return output;
}

char *fd_info(int fd)
{
    if (fd < 0 || fd >= FD_SETSIZE)
        return FALSE;
    // if (fcntl(fd, F_GETFL) == -1 && errno == EBADF)
    int rv = fcntl(fd, F_GETFL);
    return (rv == -1) ? strerror(errno) : fcntl_flags(rv);
}

FD_SETSIZE is usually 1024, and the maximum files per process is usually 1024. If you want to be sure, you can replace it with a call to this function, as described by TomH.

#include <sys/time.h>
#include <sys/resource.h>

rlim_t get_rlimit_files()
{
    struct rlimit rlim;
    getrlimit(RLIMIT_NOFILE, &rlim);
    return rlim.rlim_cur;
}   

If you put all of that together into a single file (which I did, just to check it), you can produce an output similar to this to confirm it works as advertised:

0:     0                  O_RDWR  dup() ok
1:     0                O_WRONLY  dup() ok
2:     0                  O_RDWR  dup() ok
3:     0              O_NONBLOCK  dup() ok
4:     0     O_WRONLY O_NONBLOCK  dup() ok
5:    -1      Bad file descriptor Bad file descriptor
6:    -1      Bad file descriptor Bad file descriptor
7:    -1      Bad file descriptor Bad file descriptor
8:    -1      Bad file descriptor Bad file descriptor
9:    -1      Bad file descriptor Bad file descriptor

I hope that answers any questions you have, and in case you were wondering, I actually came here looking for the answer to the question the OP asked, and upon reading the answered, remember I had already written the code years ago. Enjoy.