gd_rewrite_fragment(3)

NAME
gd_rewrite_fragment — re-write a Dirfile format specification fragment

SYNOPSIS
#include <getdata.h>

int gd_rewrite_fragment(DIRFILE *dirfile, int fragment);

DESCRIPTION
The writes the format specification fragment specified by fragment to disk, regardless of whether it has changed or not, overwriting the existing file.

In addition to being simply a valid fragment index, fragment may also be the special value GD_ALL_FRAGMENTS, which indicates that all fragments should be rewritten.

Metadata is written to disk using the current Standards Version as stored in the dirfile object. See to change or report the current Standards Version. If the dirfile metadata conforms to no known Standards Version, a Standards non-compliant fragment will be written.

RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, a negative-valued error code is returned. Possible error codes are: The supplied dirfile was opened in read-only mode. The library was unable to allocate memory. The supplied dirfile was invalid. The supplied fragment index was out of range. An I/O error occurred while trying to write modified metadata to disk. While attempting to flush modified metadata to disk, a field specification line exceeded the maximum allowed length. On most platforms, the maximum length is at least 2**31 bytes, so this typically indicates something pathological happening.

The error code is also stored in the DIRFILE object and may be retrieved after this function returns by calling A descriptive error string for the error may be obtained by calling

BUGS
When writing metadata using Standards Version 4 or earlier, the reference field may change, owing to the lack of a /REFERENCE directive. A work-around is to upgrade to Standards Version 5 or later.

HISTORY
The function appeared in GetData-0.7.0. In GetData-0.10.0, the error return from this function changed from -1 to a negative-valued error code.

SEE ALSO