From 8856aab855d155e2c9273b7ea5950dfbbe13644a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Kerrisk Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:04:07 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] inotify.7: Note rationale and consequences of event coalescing Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk --- man7/inotify.7 | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/man7/inotify.7 b/man7/inotify.7 index 22e69e630..de07005c4 100644 --- a/man7/inotify.7 +++ b/man7/inotify.7 @@ -401,6 +401,9 @@ and .IR name ) then they are coalesced into a single event if the older event has not yet been read (but see BUGS). +This reduces the amount of kernel memory required for the event queue, +but also means that an application can't use inotify to reliably count +file events. The events returned by reading from an inotify file descriptor form an ordered queue.