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SEARCHFS(2)                 BSD System Calls Manual                SEARCHFS(2)

NAME
     searchfs -- search a volume quickly

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/attr.h>
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     searchfs(const char * path, struct fssearchblock * searchBlock, unsigned long * numMatches,
         unsigned long scriptCode, unsigned long options, struct searchstate * state);

DESCRIPTION
     The searchfs() function searches the volume (that is, mounted file system) specified by path for file
     system objects matching the criteria specified by searchBlock, scriptCode, and options.  The numMatches
     parameter returns the number of matching file system objects found.  The function also returns
     attributes of those file system objects in a buffer specified by searchBlock.  The searchState parame-ter parameter
     ter allows you search the volume using multiple calls to searchfs(), resuming the search where it left
     off.  The routine will only return objects to which you have access (that is, you have execute permis-sions permissions
     sions on the directories leading to this object from the root).

     The path parameter must reference a valid file system object on the volume to be searched.  Typically
     the path is to the volume's root directory.  The entire volume is always searched.  All directories
     listed in the path name leading to this object must be searchable.

     The searchBlock parameter is a pointer to an fssearchblock structure, as defined by <sys/attr.h> (shown
     below).  You are responsible for filling out all fields of this structure before calling the function.

     struct fssearchblock {
         struct attrlist *   returnattrs;
         void *              returnbuffer;
         size_t              returnbuffersize;
         unsigned long       maxmatches;
         struct timeval      timelimit;
         void *              searchparams1;
         size_t              sizeofsearchparams1;
         void *              searchparams2;
         size_t              sizeofsearchparams2;
         struct attrlist     searchattrs;
     };

     For information about the attrlist structure, see the discussion of getattrlist(2).

     The fields of the fssearchblock structure are defined as follows.

     returnattrs          searchfs() can return arbitrary attributes of the file system objects that it
                          finds.  This field must point to an attrlist structure that specifies the
                          attributes that you want returned.  To request an attribute you must set the cor-responding corresponding
                          responding bit in the appropriate attrgroup_t field of the attrlist structure.
                          You are responsible for filling out all fields of this structure before calling
                          the function.  You must not request volume attributes.

     returnbuffer         searchfs() places attributes of the matching file system objects into this
                          returned attributes buffer.  The attributes for any given object are grouped
                          together and packed in exactly the same way as they would be returned from
                          getdirentriesattr(2).  The initial contents of this buffer are ignored.

     returnbuffersize     Set this field to the size, in bytes, of the buffer pointed to by returnbuffer.

     maxmatches           Specifies the maximum number of matches that you want this call to searchfs() to
                          return.

     timelimit            Specifies the maximum time that you want this call to searchfs() to run.

                          If you're implementing a volume format, you should impose your own internal limit
                          on the duration of this call to prevent a malicious user program from monopolising
                          kernel resources.

     searchparams1        Specifies the lower bound of the search criteria.  This is discussed in detail
                          below.  You must place attribute values into the buffer in the same way as they
                          would be returned by getattrlist(2), where the searchattrs field determines the
                          exact layout of the attribute values.

     sizeofsearchparams1  Set this field to the size, in bytes, of the buffer pointed to by searchparams1.

     searchparams2        Specifies the upper bound of the search criteria.  This is discussed in detail
                          below.  You must place attribute values into the buffer in the same way as they
                          would be returned by getattrlist(2), where the searchattrs field determines the
                          exact layout of the attribute values.

     sizeofsearchparams2  Set this field to the size, in bytes, of the buffer pointed to by searchparams2.

     searchattrs          Specifies the attributes that you want you use for your search criteria.  You are
                          responsible for filling out all fields of this structure before calling the func-tion. function.
                          tion.  To search for an attribute you must set the corresponding bit in the appro-priate appropriate
                          priate attrgroup_t field of the attrlist structure, and place the appropriate val-ues values
                          ues into the searchparam1 and searchparam2 buffers.  The attributes specified here
                          determine the format of those buffers.  This is discussed in detail below.

     The numMatches parameter points to an unsigned long variable.  The initial value of this variable is
     ignored.  On return, this variable contains the number of matching file system objects found.  The is
     always less than or equal to the maxmatches field of the searchBlock parameter.  The attributes for the
     matching objects have been placed into the returned attributes buffer.

     The scriptCode parameter is currently ignored.  You should always pass in the value 0x08000103, which
     corresponds to the UTF-8 text encoding value defined by <CarbonCore/TextCommon.h>.

     The options parameter is a bit set that controls the behaviour of searchfs().  The following option
     bits are defined.

     SRCHFS_START              If this bit is set, searchfs() will ignore the state parameter and start a
                               new search.  Otherwise searchfs() assumes that searchstate is valid and
                               attempts to resume a previous search based on that state.

     SRCHFS_MATCHPARTIALNAMES  If this bit is set, searchfs() will consider substrings to be successful
                               matches when evaluating the ATTR_CMN_NAME attribute.

     SRCHFS_MATCHDIRS          If this bit is set, searchfs() will search for directories that match the
                               search criteria.  To get meaningful results you must specify either this bit
                               or SRCHFS_MATCHFILES, or both.

     SRCHFS_MATCHFILES         If this bit is set, searchfs() will search for files that match the search
                               criteria.  To get meaningful results you must specify either this bit or
                               SRCHFS_MATCHDIRS, or both.

     SRCHFS_SKIPLINKS          If this bit is set, searchfs() will only return one reference for a hard
                               linked file, rather that a reference for each hard link to the file.

                               This option is not recommended for general development.  Its primary client
                               is the quotacheck(2) utility.

                               This option is privileged (the caller's effective UID must be 0) and cannot
                               be used if you request the ATTR_CMN_NAME or ATTR_CMN_PAROBJID attributes.

                               Introduced with Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3).

     SRCHFS_SKIPINVISIBLE      If this bit is set, searchfs() will not match any invisible file system
                               objects (that is, objects whose ATTR_CMN_FNDRINFO attribute has bit 6 set in
                               the ninth byte) or any objects within invisible directories.

                               Introduced with Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3).

     SRCHFS_SKIPPACKAGES       If this bit is set, searchfs() will not match any file system objects that
                               are inside a package.  A package is defined as a directory whose extension
                               matches one of the extensions that are configured into the kernel by Launch
                               Services.

                               Introduced with Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3).

     SRCHFS_SKIPINAPPROPRIATE  If this bit is set, searchfs() will not match any file system objects that
                               are within an inappropriate directory.  The current list of inappropriate
                               directories contains one item: /System.

                               Introduced with Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3).

     SRCHFS_NEGATEPARAMS       If this bit is set, searchfs() will return all the file system objects that
                               do not match the search criteria.

                               Introduced with Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3).

     The state parameter is a pointer to an opaque data structure that searchfs() uses to maintain the state
     of a search between successive calls.  In your first call to searchfs(), you specify the SRCHFS_START
     flag in the options parameter.  This tells searchfs() that the search state is invalid and that it
     should start a new search.  When this call completes, it may have only returned partial results; in
     that case, it will have updated the structure pointed to by state.  If you call searchfs() again, this
     time without specifying the SRCHFS_START flag in the options parameter, it will resume the search where
     it left off, using the search state that it previously stored in the state structure.  You do not need
     to explicitly dispose of this state.

     The searchfs() function returns significant errors in the followings cases.

     oo   If it has found as many objects as you requested in the maxmatches field of the searchBlock parame-ter, parameter,
         ter, it will return EAGAIN.

     oo   If there is not enough space in the returned attributes buffer for the first match, it will return
         ENOBUFS.  You should allocate a larger returned attributes buffer and try again.  numMatches will
         be zero in this case.

     oo   If the timeout expires it will return EAGAIN.

     oo   If you attempt to resume a search (that is, SRCHFS_START is not specified in the options parameter)
         and the catalog has changed since the last search, the function will return EBUSY.  You must start
         your search again from the beginning.

     If searchfs() returns EAGAIN, the value in numMatches may be greater than zero.  This is known as a
     partial result.  You should be sure to process these matches before calling searchfs() again.

SEARCH CRITERIA
     You specify the search criteria using a combination of the searchattrs, searchparams1,
     sizeofsearchparams1, searchparams2, and sizeofsearchparams2 fields of the searchBlock parameter, and
     various flags in the options parameter.  The searchattrs field determines the attributes considered
     when comparing a file system object to the search criteria.  You can specify that an attribute should
     be considered by setting the corresponding bit in the appropriate attrgroup_t field of the attrlist
     structure.  See the discussion of getattrlist(2) for a detailed description of this structure.

     The searchparams1, sizeofsearchparams1, searchparams2, and sizeofsearchparams2 fields specify the
     attribute values that must be matched.  The format of each of these buffers is determined by the
     attributes that you're searching for.  The values are packed in exactly the same way as they would be
     returned from getattrlist(2), including the leading unsigned long length value.

     The attribute values in the first and second search buffers form a lower and upper bound for the
     search, respectively.  These have different meanings depending on the type of attribute.

     oo   For string attributes (specifically ATTR_CMN_NAME, the object name), the value in the first search
         buffer is significant and the value in the second search buffer is ignored.  The string comparison
         is either an exact match or a substring match depending on the SRCHFS_MATCHPARTIALNAMES flag in the
         options parameter.

     oo   For structured attributes (specifically ATTR_CMN_FNDRINFO, the Finder information), the value from
         the file system object is masked (logical AND) with the value in the second search buffer and then
         compared, byte for byte, against the value in the first search buffer.  If it is equal, the object
         is a match.

     oo   For scalar attributes (all other attributes, for example, ATTR_CMN_MODTIME, the modification date),
         the values in the first and second search buffers are literally a lower and upper bound.  An object
         matches the criteria if its value is greater than or equal to the value in the first buffer and
         less than or equal to the value in the second.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  This means that the entire volume has been
     searched and all matches returned.  Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate
     the error.

     See the discussion of the EAGAIN, ENOBUFS, and EBUSY error codes above.

COMPATIBILITY
     Not all volumes support searchfs().  You can test whether a volume supports searchfs() by using
     getattrlist(2) to get the volume capabilities attribute ATTR_VOL_CAPABILITIES, and then testing the
     VOL_CAP_INT_SEARCHFS flag.

     The searchfs() function has been undocumented for more than two years.  In that time a number of volume
     format implementations have been created without a proper specification for the behaviour of this rou-tine. routine.
     tine.  You may encounter volume format implementations with slightly different behaviour than what is
     described here.  Your program is expected to be tolerant of this variant behaviour.

     If you're implementing a volume format that supports searchfs(), you should be careful to support the
     behaviour specified by this document.

     A bug in systems prior to Darwin 7.0 (Mac OS X version 10.3) makes searching for the ATTR_CMN_BKUPTIME
     attribute tricky.  The bug causes the attribute to consume two items in the search attribute buffers,
     the first in the proper place and the second between ATTR_CMN_FNDRINFO and ATTR_CMN_OWNERID.

ERRORS
     searchfs() will fail if:

     [ENOTSUP]          The volume does not support searchfs().

     [ENOTDIR]          A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]     A component of a path name exceeded NAME_MAX characters, or an entire path name
                        exceeded PATH_MAX characters.

     [ENOENT]           The file system object does not exist.

     [EACCES]           Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.

     [ELOOP]            Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

     [EFAULT]           One of the pointer parameters points to an invalid address.

     [EINVAL]           The options parameter contains an invalid flag or sizeofsearchparams1/2 is greater
                        than SEARCHFS_MAX_SEARCHPARMS (see attr.h).

     [EAGAIN]           The search terminated with partial results, either because numMatches has hit the
                        limit specified by maxmatches or because the timeout expired.  Process the matches
                        returned so far and then call searchfs() again to look for more.

     [ENOBUFS]          The returned attributes buffer is too small for the first match.  You should allo-cate allocate
                        cate a larger returned attributes buffer and try again.  numMatches will be zero in
                        this case.

     [EBUSY]            The search could not be resumed because the volume has changed.

     [EIO]              An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

CAVEATS
     Not all attributes can be searched for using searchfs().  The list currently includes:

     ATTR_CMN_NAME
     ATTR_CMN_OBJID
     ATTR_CMN_PAROBJID
     ATTR_CMN_CRTIME
     ATTR_CMN_MODTIME
     ATTR_CMN_CHGTIME
     ATTR_CMN_ACCTIME
     ATTR_CMN_BKUPTIME
     ATTR_CMN_FNDRINFO
     ATTR_CMN_BKUPTIME
     ATTR_CMN_OWNERID
     ATTR_CMN_GRPID
     ATTR_CMN_ACCESSMASK

     ATTR_DIR_ENTRYCOUNT

     ATTR_FILE_DATALENGTH
     ATTR_FILE_DATAALLOCSIZE
     ATTR_FILE_RSRCLENGTH
     ATTR_FILE_RSRCALLOCSIZE

EXAMPLES
     The following code searches a volume for files of the specified type and creator.

     #include <assert.h>
     #include <stdio.h>
     #include <stddef.h>
     #include <string.h>
     #include <sys/attr.h>
     #include <sys/errno.h>
     #include <unistd.h>

     typedef struct attrlist         attrlist_t;
     typedef struct fssearchblock    fssearchblock_t;
     typedef struct searchstate      searchstate_t;

     struct SearchAttrBuf {
         unsigned long   length;
         char            finderInfo[32];
     };
     typedef struct SearchAttrBuf SearchAttrBuf;

     struct ResultAttrBuf {
         unsigned long   length;
         attrreference_t name;
         fsobj_id_t      parObjID;
     };
     typedef struct ResultAttrBuf ResultAttrBuf;

     enum {
         kMatchesPerCall = 16
     };

     static int SearchFSDemo(
         const char *volPath,
         const char *type,
         const char *creator
     )
     {
         int             err;
         fssearchblock_t searchBlock;
         SearchAttrBuf   lower;
         SearchAttrBuf   upper;
         static const unsigned char kAllOnes[4] = { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF };
         unsigned long   matchCount;
         unsigned long   matchIndex;
         unsigned long   options;
         searchstate_t   state;
         ResultAttrBuf * thisEntry;
         attrlist_t      returnAttrList;
         char            resultAttrBuf[  kMatchesPerCall
                                       * (sizeof(ResultAttrBuf) + 64)];

         // resultAttrBuf is big enough for kMatchesPerCall entries,
         // assuming that the average name length is less than 64.

         assert(strlen(type)    == 4);
         assert(strlen(creator) == 4);

         memset(&searchBlock, 0, sizeof(searchBlock));
         searchBlock.searchattrs.bitmapcount = ATTR_BIT_MAP_COUNT;
         searchBlock.searchattrs.commonattr  = ATTR_CMN_FNDRINFO;

         memset(&lower, 0, sizeof(lower));
         memset(&upper, 0, sizeof(upper));
         lower.length = sizeof(lower);
         upper.length = sizeof(upper);
         memcpy(&lower.finderInfo[0], type,     4);
         memcpy(&lower.finderInfo[4], creator,  4);
         memcpy(&upper.finderInfo[0], kAllOnes, 4);
         memcpy(&upper.finderInfo[4], kAllOnes, 4);
         searchBlock.searchparams1       = &lower;
         searchBlock.sizeofsearchparams1 = sizeof(lower);
         searchBlock.searchparams2       = &upper;
         searchBlock.sizeofsearchparams2 = sizeof(lower);

         searchBlock.timelimit.tv_sec  = 0;
         searchBlock.timelimit.tv_usec = 100 * 1000;

         searchBlock.maxmatches = kMatchesPerCall;

         memset(&returnAttrList, 0, sizeof(returnAttrList));
         returnAttrList.bitmapcount = ATTR_BIT_MAP_COUNT;
         returnAttrList.commonattr  = ATTR_CMN_NAME | ATTR_CMN_PAROBJID;

         searchBlock.returnattrs = &returnAttrList;
         searchBlock.returnbuffer = resultAttrBuf;
         searchBlock.returnbuffersize = sizeof(resultAttrBuf);

         options = SRCHFS_START | SRCHFS_MATCHFILES;

         do {
             err = searchfs(
                 volPath,
                 &searchBlock,
                 &matchCount,
                 0x08000103,
                 options,
                 &state
             );
             if (err != 0) {
                 err = errno;
             }
             if ( (err == 0) || (err == EAGAIN) ) {
                 thisEntry = (ResultAttrBuf *) resultAttrBuf;

                 for (matchIndex = 0; matchIndex < matchCount; matchIndex++) {
                     printf("%08x ", thisEntry->parObjID.fid_objno);
                     printf(
                         "%s\n",
                         ((char *) &thisEntry->name)
                             + thisEntry->name.attr_dataoffset
                     );
                     // Advance to the next entry.
                     ((char *) thisEntry) += thisEntry->length;
                 }
             }

             options &= ~SRCHFS_START;
         } while (err == EAGAIN);

         return err;
     }

SEE ALSO
     getattrlist(2)

HISTORY
     A searchfs() function call appeared in Darwin 1.3.1 (Mac OS X version 10.0).

Darwin                         December 15, 2003                        Darwin

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