unix: improve Sendmsg and Recvmsg documentation

This clarifies these functions' behavior when the non-control data is
empty but there is a control data present.

It also makes clear the difference between Sendmsg, SendmsgN, and
SendmsgBuffers, and between Recvmsg and RecvmsgBuffers.

Fixes golang/go#56911

Change-Id: I1e35659e66e493c192af7f5a426a316f6052475c
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/sys/+/456816
Run-TryBot: Ian Lance Taylor <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Than McIntosh <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Ian Lance Taylor <[email protected]>
TryBot-Result: Gopher Robot <[email protected]>
Auto-Submit: Ian Lance Taylor <[email protected]>

Author: dpifke

unix/syscall_unix.go

@@ -331,6 +331,19 @@ func Recvfrom(fd int, p []byte, flags int) (n int, from Sockaddr, err error) {
 	return
 }
 
+// Recvmsg receives a message from a socket using the recvmsg system call. The
+// received non-control data will be written to p, and any "out of band"
+// control data will be written to oob. The flags are passed to recvmsg.
+//
+// The results are:
+//   - n is the number of non-control data bytes read into p
+//   - oobn is the number of control data bytes read into oob; this may be interpreted using [ParseSocketControlMessage]
+//   - recvflags is flags returned by recvmsg
+//   - from is the address of the sender
+//
+// If the underlying socket type is not SOCK_DGRAM, a received message
+// containing oob data and a single '\0' of non-control data is treated as if
+// the message contained only control data, i.e. n will be zero on return.
 func Recvmsg(fd int, p, oob []byte, flags int) (n, oobn int, recvflags int, from Sockaddr, err error) {
 	var iov [1]Iovec
 	if len(p) > 0 {
@@ -346,13 +359,9 @@ func Recvmsg(fd int, p, oob []byte, flags int) (n, oobn int, recvflags int, from
 	return
 }
 
-// RecvmsgBuffers receives a message from a socket using the recvmsg
-// system call. The flags are passed to recvmsg. Any non-control data
-// read is scattered into the buffers slices. The results are:
-//   - n is the number of non-control data read into bufs
-//   - oobn is the number of control data read into oob; this may be interpreted using [ParseSocketControlMessage]
-//   - recvflags is flags returned by recvmsg
-//   - from is the address of the sender
+// RecvmsgBuffers receives a message from a socket using the recvmsg system
+// call. This function is equivalent to Recvmsg, but non-control data read is
+// scattered into the buffers slices.
 func RecvmsgBuffers(fd int, buffers [][]byte, oob []byte, flags int) (n, oobn int, recvflags int, from Sockaddr, err error) {
 	iov := make([]Iovec, len(buffers))
 	for i := range buffers {
@@ -371,11 +380,38 @@ func RecvmsgBuffers(fd int, buffers [][]byte, oob []byte, flags int) (n, oobn in
 	return
 }
 
+// Sendmsg sends a message on a socket to an address using the sendmsg system
+// call. This function is equivalent to SendmsgN, but does not return the
+// number of bytes actually sent.
 func Sendmsg(fd int, p, oob []byte, to Sockaddr, flags int) (err error) {
 	_, err = SendmsgN(fd, p, oob, to, flags)
 	return
 }
 
+// SendmsgN sends a message on a socket to an address using the sendmsg system
+// call. p contains the non-control data to send, and oob contains the "out of
+// band" control data. The flags are passed to sendmsg. The number of
+// non-control bytes actually written to the socket is returned.
+//
+// Some socket types do not support sending control data without accompanying
+// non-control data. If p is empty, and oob contains control data, and the
+// underlying socket type is not SOCK_DGRAM, p will be treated as containing a
+// single '\0' and the return value will indicate zero bytes sent.
+//
+// The Go function Recvmsg, if called with an empty p and a non-empty oob,
+// will read and ignore this additional '\0'.  If the message is received by
+// code that does not use Recvmsg, or that does not use Go at all, that code
+// will need to be written to expect and ignore the additional '\0'.
+//
+// If you need to send non-empty oob with p actually empty, and if the
+// underlying socket type supports it, you can do so via a raw system call as
+// follows:
+//
+//	msg := &unix.Msghdr{
+//	    Control: &oob[0],
+//	}
+//	msg.SetControllen(len(oob))
+//	n, _, errno := unix.Syscall(unix.SYS_SENDMSG, uintptr(fd), uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(msg)), flags)
 func SendmsgN(fd int, p, oob []byte, to Sockaddr, flags int) (n int, err error) {
 	var iov [1]Iovec
 	if len(p) > 0 {
@@ -394,9 +430,8 @@ func SendmsgN(fd int, p, oob []byte, to Sockaddr, flags int) (n int, err error)
 }
 
 // SendmsgBuffers sends a message on a socket to an address using the sendmsg
-// system call. The flags are passed to sendmsg. Any non-control data written
-// is gathered from buffers. The function returns the number of bytes written
-// to the socket.
+// system call. This function is equivalent to SendmsgN, but the non-control
+// data is gathered from buffers.
 func SendmsgBuffers(fd int, buffers [][]byte, oob []byte, to Sockaddr, flags int) (n int, err error) {
 	iov := make([]Iovec, len(buffers))
 	for i := range buffers {