Chapter 13: File I/O Buffering

In the interests of speed and efficiency, both I/O system calls (i.e., the kernel) and the I/O functions of the standard C library (i.e., the stdio functions) buffer data when operating on disk files. In this chapter, we describe both types of buffering and consider how they affect application performance. We also look at various techniques for influencing and disabling both types of buffering, and look at a technique called direct I/O, which is useful for bypassing kernel buffering in certain circumstances.

13 File I/O Buffering
13.1 Kernel Buffering of File I/O: The Buffer Cache
13.2 Buffering in the stdio Library
13.3 Controlling Kernel Buffering of File I/O
13.4 Summary of I/O Buffering
13.5 Giving the Kernel Hints about I/O Patterns: posix_fadvise()
13.6 Bypassing the Buffer Cache: Direct I/O
13.7 Mixing Library Functions and System Calls for File I/O
13.8 Summary
13.9 Exercises