This is the nitty-gritty reference and programming guide for Unix.
The information found here is not in the manuals, is not in the include files, but is here.
Stevens covers both System V Release 4 and 4.4BSD. This adds tremendous value, especially for those of us who sometimes need to port things from here to there or back again.
Stevens approaches the subject by breaking it down into major chunks. Chapter 3, for example, is File I/O. He briefly introduces the subject, explains file descriptors and the conventions of their enumeration, notes the POSIX constants and discusses limits. He then jumps into actual calls, starting (of course) with open().
As would be expected, Stevens details open()'s arguments, the include's necessary, and the possible returns. You could get that from a man page, but Stevens takes it further, discussing the variances of SVR4 and 4.3BSD vs. POSIX. He covers the rest of the related calls (creat, close,lseek,read,write), giving examples and showing output from those examples, and then jumps into I/O efficiency, file sharing, appending, dup'ing file descriptors and so on. He therefore covers File I/O as completely as you could ask for, and this, of course, is just one chapter.
Stevens writing is clear, his examples are useful, and his level
of detail is wonderful. This is a must have book for anyone
programming on Unix.
Got something to add? Send me email.
More Articles by Tony Lawrence © 2011-04-30 Tony Lawrence
The whole thing that makes a mathematician’s life worthwhile is that he gets the grudging admiration of three or four colleagues. (Donald Knuth)
Printer Friendly Version
Unix Programming Copyright © January 1997 Tony Lawrence
Have you tried Searching this site?
This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more.
Contact us
Printer Friendly Version