kernfs_name(9)

📦 version 7.3.1, in nixpkgs unstable

🌸 kernfs_name(9) — the kernel API manual, bestie edition 🌸

Okay so this is kernfs_name(9) from the Kernel API Manual (section 9, kernel-level, no cap) and it's honestly such a useful little guy. Let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

kernfs_name — obtain the name of a given node. That's it, that's the whole gig 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

int kernfs_name (struct kernfs_node *kn , char *buf , size_t buflen );

💖 ARGUMENTS 💖

  • kn — the kernfs_node of interest 👀 like, the node you're curious about
  • buf — the buffer you want to copy kn's name into 🫶
  • buflen — the size of buf, in bytes, so we know how much room we've got

⭐ DESCRIPTION ⭐

So what it does is: copies the name of kn into buf of buflen bytes. The behavior is similar to strscpy — iykyk 😌

If kn is NULL, it fills the buffer with "(null)" instead. Nice of it honestly, no crash, just a polite little placeholder 🙈

And the best part? This function can be called from any context. Literally any. Main character energy, it doesn't care where you call it from 🔥

👑 RETURN 👑

It returns the resulting length of buf.

But listen — if buf isn't long enough, it gets filled up to buflen-1 and nul terminated, and the function returns -E2BIG. So watch your sizes bestie, or you'll get that negative back 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

Kernel file ./fs/kernfs/dir.c — and these siblings of the kernfs family, all iconic:

That's the whole page babes, go forth and get those node names 💜

Source path: ./fs/kernfs — dated October 2026, and yes that's the whole credit line, slay ✨🫶🎀

📦 where this page comes from