Thread: mmap fails with errno EBADF

  1. #1
    Registered User
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    mmap fails with errno EBADF

    In my program I am opening a file as follows:

    Code:
    std::string filename = "somefile";
    struct stat st;
    stat(filename.c_str(), &st);
    int fd = open(filename.c_str(), O_RDONLY);
    the open succeeds, and gives me a valid file number.
    I then attempt to memory-map the file using mmap() as follows:

    Code:
    unsigned char* buf = (unsigned char*)mmap(NULL, st.st_size, PROT_READ, fd, MAP_PRIVATE | MAP_POPULATE, 0);
    I then check the return value of mmap() and find that it is equal to MAP_FAILED. I print the return value of strerror(errno) to stdout and it says "Bad file descriptor."

    the file is exactly 51200000 bytes long (an integer multiple of the 4096 byte page size), and I'm not asking it to map to a specific or non-aligned memory address.

    not sure what I'm doing wrong here, but I just can't seem to make this work.

    system is OpenSuse 10.3 x86 kernel version 2.6.22.5-31-default
    2GB of system memory + 4GB swap
    GCC version 4.2.1
    Last edited by Elkvis; 09-10-2009 at 09:30 AM. Reason: add more info

  2. #2
    Registered User Codeplug's Avatar
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    You got your parameters to mmap() mixed up.

    gg

  3. #3
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    thanks! it would have taken me many hours to spot that, being inexperienced with mmap and its friends.

  4. #4
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    This is all I've ever done with mmap(), but it worked:

    seeking for exercises

    Looking at that, it appears I used a file opened O_RDWR|O_CREAT, not O_RDONLY, but since your mmap call is PROT_READ I guess that should be okay. The other difference is in the flags at the end...which it looks to me like you have the flags parameter and the fd parameter backward!
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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