[PATCH] Introduce sys_splice() system call

This adds support for the sys_splice system call. Using a pipe as a
transport, it can connect to files or sockets (latter as output only).

From the splice.c comments:

   "splice": joining two ropes together by interweaving their strands.

   This is the "extended pipe" functionality, where a pipe is used as
   an arbitrary in-memory buffer. Think of a pipe as a small kernel
   buffer that you can use to transfer data from one end to the other.

   The traditional unix read/write is extended with a "splice()" operation
   that transfers data buffers to or from a pipe buffer.

   Named by Larry McVoy, original implementation from Linus, extended by
   Jens to support splicing to files and fixing the initial implementation
   bugs.

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/syscalls.h b/include/linux/syscalls.h
index e487e3b60f60..e78ffc7d5b56 100644
--- a/include/linux/syscalls.h
+++ b/include/linux/syscalls.h
@@ -569,5 +569,7 @@ asmlinkage long compat_sys_newfstatat(unsigned int dfd, char __user * filename,
 asmlinkage long compat_sys_openat(unsigned int dfd, const char __user *filename,
                                    int flags, int mode);
 asmlinkage long sys_unshare(unsigned long unshare_flags);
+asmlinkage long sys_splice(int fdin, int fdout, size_t len,
+                                unsigned int flags);
 
 #endif