man2/getcpu.2

.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
.\"
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.\" 2008, mtk, various edits
.\"
.TH GETCPU 2 2021-03-22 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
getcpu \- determine CPU and NUMA node on which the calling thread is running
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.BR "#define _GNU_SOURCE" "             /* See feature_test_macros(7) */"
.B #include <sched.h>
.PP
.BI "int getcpu(unsigned int *" cpu ", unsigned int *" node );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR getcpu ()
system call identifies the processor and node on which the calling
thread or process is currently running and writes them into the
integers pointed to by the
.I cpu
and
.I node
arguments.
The processor is a unique small integer identifying a CPU.
The node is a unique small identifier identifying a NUMA node.
When either
.I cpu
or
.I node
is NULL nothing is written to the respective pointer.
.PP
The information placed in
.I cpu
is guaranteed to be current only at the time of the call:
unless the CPU affinity has been fixed using
.BR sched_setaffinity (2),
the kernel might change the CPU at any time.
(Normally this does not happen
because the scheduler tries to minimize movements between CPUs to
keep caches hot, but it is possible.)
The caller must allow for the possibility that the information returned in
.I cpu
and
.I node
is no longer current by the time the call returns.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success, 0 is returned.
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EFAULT
Arguments point outside the calling process's address space.
.SH VERSIONS
.BR getcpu ()
was added in kernel 2.6.19 for x86-64 and i386.
Library support was added in glibc 2.29
(Earlier glibc versions did not provide a wrapper for this system call,
necessitating the use of
.BR syscall (2).)
.SH CONFORMING TO
.BR getcpu ()
is Linux-specific.
.SH NOTES
Linux makes a best effort to make this call as fast as possible.
(On some architectures, this is done via an implementation in the
.BR vdso (7).)
The intention of
.BR getcpu ()
is to allow programs to make optimizations with per-CPU data
or for NUMA optimization.
.\"
.SS C library/kernel differences
The kernel system call has a third argument:
.PP
.in +4n
.nf
.BI "int getcpu(unsigned int *" cpu ", unsigned int *" node ,
.BI "           struct getcpu_cache *" tcache );
.fi
.in
.PP
The
.I tcache
argument is unused since Linux 2.6.24,
and (when invoking the system call directly)
should be specified as NULL,
unless portability to Linux 2.6.23 or earlier is required.
.PP
.\" commit 4307d1e5ada595c87f9a4d16db16ba5edb70dcb1
.\" Author: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
.\" Date:   Wed Nov 7 18:37:48 2007 +0100
.\" x86: ignore the sys_getcpu() tcache parameter
In Linux 2.6.23 and earlier, if the
.I tcache
argument was non-NULL,
then it specified a pointer to a caller-allocated buffer in thread-local
storage that was used to provide a caching mechanism for
.BR getcpu ().
Use of the cache could speed
.BR getcpu ()
calls, at the cost that there was a very small chance that
the returned information would be out of date.
The caching mechanism was considered to cause problems when
migrating threads between CPUs, and so the argument is now ignored.
.\"
.\" ===== Before kernel 2.6.24: =====
.\" .I tcache
.\" is a pointer to a
.\" .IR "struct getcpu_cache"
.\" that is used as a cache by
.\" .BR getcpu ().
.\" The caller should put the cache into a thread-local variable
.\" if the process is multithreaded,
.\" because the cache cannot be shared between different threads.
.\" .I tcache
.\" can be NULL.
.\" If it is not NULL
.\" .BR getcpu ()
.\" will use it to speed up operation.
.\" The information inside the cache is private to the system call
.\" and should not be accessed by the user program.
.\" The information placed in the cache can change between kernel releases.
.\"
.\" When no cache is specified
.\" .BR getcpu ()
.\" will be slower,
.\" but always retrieve the current CPU and node information.
.\" With a cache
.\" .BR getcpu ()
.\" is faster.
.\" However, the cached information is updated only once per jiffy (see
.\" .BR time (7)).
.\" This means that the information could theoretically be out of date,
.\" although in practice the scheduler's attempt to maintain
.\" soft CPU affinity means that the information is unlikely to change
.\" over the course of the caching interval.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mbind (2),
.BR sched_setaffinity (2),
.BR set_mempolicy (2),
.BR sched_getcpu (3),
.BR cpuset (7),
.BR vdso (7)