Using C on the UNIX System

By Dave Curry

"Using C on the UNIX System" provides a thorough introduction to the UNIX system call libraries. It is aimed at programmers who already know C, but who want to take full advantage of the UNIX programming environment. If you want to learn how to work with the operating system and to write programs that can interact with directories, terminals, and networks at the lowest level, you will find this book essential. It is impossible to write UNIX utilities of any sophistication without understanding the material in this book.Even if you don't want to program at this level, familiarity with the UNIX system interface is the mark of an experienced and fluent user. If you want to know how the C shell performs job control or how network addressing works, you will find the answer here. Your knowledge of the UNIX system is fundamentally incomplete until you can make C work for you."Using C" provides discussions of the most important system calls as well as detailed descriptions of the important system data structures.Topics covered include: Low-level I/O (open, close, read, write).Files, directories, and the low-level structure of the file system.I/O control, including terminal management (ioctl).Reading the system administrative databases (getpwent, etc.).Time, timers, and timing.Signal handling.How one program starts another program (system, execv, fork).Job control.Interprocess communication (sockets, message queues, semaphores, shared memory).Networking (addressing, port numbers).This book is based on Berkeley 4.3 UNIX, but also covers System V.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0937175234
• ISBN13: 9780937175231
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Ch. 8, Processing Signals, is worth the whole book.

I have taken several “c” courses. And dabbled in many platforms. Yet the courses seem to have completely overlooked signals other than a few traps. I now work in global services to help people if a function is not functioning. However, most of the questions posed were signal-related. Where did they come from? What do I do with them? The book is a bit dated, but the descriptions are still relevant, and how to handle signals is still relevant. Of course, the environment is a tad more convoluted with more complex environments. In AIX, we can look at /usr/include/sys/signal.h to see which numbers apply to which signals and get a general idea of how to treat them. Topics include: I/O without using stdio Manipulating files and directories Device I/O control Getting information about users Telling time and timing things Processing signals Creating, processing, and executing programs Job control Interprocess communications Networking (Internet client and server) Pseudo terminals Reading kernel data structures

Old but still usable

I bought this book by my own in order to understand and go a little bit deep about system calls. And this book was what I was expecting. If you are a beginer C programmer and want to get into UNIX programming this book is for you. Even though the book is like 20 years old is was just perfect for me because I was just beginning with system calls and UNIX programming. And besides, C language is almost not changed within 20 years. So, source code samples run almost without modifications. Maybe some definitions and types might look weird but I you know the basics of C this should not be a problem for you.