Invalid argument in sendfile () with two regular files

Question

I am trying to test a system call sendfile()on Linux 2.6.32 to zero copy data between two regular files. As far as I understand, it should work: since 2.6.22, it sendfile()was implemented using splice(), and both the input file and the output file can be either ordinary files or sockets.

The following is the content sendfile_test.c:

#include <sys/sendfile.h>

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  int result;
  int in_file;
  int out_file;

  in_file = open(argv[1], O_RDONLY);
  out_file = open(argv[2], O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0644);

  result = sendfile(out_file, in_file, NULL, 1);
  if (result == -1)
    perror("sendfile");

  close(in_file);
  close(out_file);

  return 0;
}

And when I run the following commands:

$ gcc sendfile_test.c 
$ ./a.out infile outfile

Output signal

sendfile: Invalid argument

And at startup

$ strace ./a.out infile outfile

The conclusion contains

open("infile", O_RDONLY)                = 3
open("outfile", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0644) = 4
sendfile(4, 3, NULL, 1)                 = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument)

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

, argc 3, argv[2], ( open(2).)

strace(1), , .

Edit:

. ( ) 2.6.33.4 #3 SMP. , - ?

#include <sys/sendfile.h>
#include <err.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
    int in_file, out_file;

    if ( argc != 3 )
    {
        fprintf( stderr, "usage: %s <in-file> <out-file>\n", argv[0] );
        exit( 1 );
    }

    if (( in_file = open( argv[1], O_RDONLY )) == -1 ) err( 1, "open" );
    if (( out_file = open( argv[2], O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0644 )) == -1 )
        err( 1, "open(2)" );

    if ( sendfile( out_file, in_file, NULL, 4096 ) == -1 ) err( 1, "sendfile" );

    exit( 0 );
}

:

nickf@slack:~/csource/linux/splice$ cc -Wall -pedantic -ggdb -g3 -o sf sndf.c 
nickf@slack:~/csource/linux/splice$ strace ./sf Makefile mm
...
open("Makefile", O_RDONLY)              = 3
open("mm", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0644) = 4
sendfile(4, 3, NULL, 4096)              = 239
exit_group(0)                           = ?
nickf@slack:~/csource/linux/splice$ diff Makefile mm 
nickf@slack:~/csource/linux/splice$