libnvme(9)

NAME
enum nvme_status_type - type encoding for NVMe return values, when represented as an int.

SYNOPSIS
enum nvme_status_type {
NVME_STATUS_TYPE_SHIFT ,
NVME_STATUS_TYPE_MASK ,
NVME_STATUS_TYPE_NVME ,
NVME_STATUS_TYPE_MI };

Constants

NVME_STATUS_TYPE_SHIFT
    shift value for status bits

NVME_STATUS_TYPE_MASK
    mask value for status bits

NVME_STATUS_TYPE_NVME
    NVMe command status value, typically from CDW3

NVME_STATUS_TYPE_MI
    NVMe-MI header status

Description
The nvme_* api returns an int, with negative values indicating an internal or syscall error, zero signifying success, positive values representing the NVMe status. That latter case (the NVMe status) may represent status values from different parts of the transport/controller/etc, and are at most 16 bits of data. So, we use the most-significant 3 bits of the signed int to indicate which type of status this is.