Retrieve filename from file descriptor in C

Question

Is it possible to get the filename of a file descriptor (Linux) in C?

Answer 1

I had this problem on Mac OS X. We don't have a /proc virtual file system, so the accepted solution cannot work.

We do, instead, have a F_GETPATH command for fcntl:

 F_GETPATH          Get the path of the file descriptor Fildes.  The argu-
                    ment must be a buffer of size MAXPATHLEN or greater.

So to get the file associated to a file descriptor, you can use this snippet:

#include <sys/syslimits.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

char filePath[PATH_MAX];
if (fcntl(fd, F_GETPATH, filePath) != -1)
{
    // do something with the file path
}

Since I never remember where MAXPATHLEN is defined, I thought PATH_MAX from syslimits would be fine.