"DESCRIPTION"
The sys_futex system call provides a method for a program to wait for a value at a given address to change, and a method to wake up anyone waiting on a particular address (while the addresses for the same memory in separate processes may not be equal, the kernel maps them internally so the same memory mapped in different locations will correspond for sys_futex calls). It is typically used to implement the contended case of a lock in shared memory, as described in futex(4).
When a futex(4) operation did not finish uncontended in userspace, a call needs to be made to the kernel to arbitrate. Arbitration can either mean putting the calling process to sleep or, conversely, waking a waiting process.
Callers of this function are expected to adhere to the semantics as set out in futex(4). As these semantics involve writing non-portable assembly instructions, this in turn probably means that most users will in fact be library authors and not general application developers.
The futex argument needs to point to an aligned integer which stores the counter. The operation to execute is passed via the op parameter, along with a value val.
Three operations are currently defined:
