Linux System Programming - Talking Directly to the Kernel and C Library. Updated for the 3.0 Linux kernel

Write software that draws directly on services offered by the Linux kernel and core system libraries. With this comprehensive book, Linux kernel contributor Robert Love provides you with a tutorial on Linux system programming, a reference manual on Linux system calls, and an insider's guide to writing smarter, faster code.
Love clearly distinguishes between POSIX standard functions and special services offered only by Linux. With a new chapter on multithreading, this updated and expanded edition provides an in-depth look at Linux from both a theoretical and applied perspective over a wide range of programming topics, including: A Linux kernel, C library, and C compiler overview Basic I/O operations, such as reading from and writing to files Advanced I/O interfaces, memory mappings, and optimization techniques The family of system calls for basic process management Advanced process management, including real-time processes Thread concepts, multithreaded programming, and Pthreads File and directory management Interfaces for allocating memory and optimizing memory access Basic and advanced signal interfaces, and their role on the system Clock management, including POSIX clocks and high-resolution timers

List of contents

Dedication;
Foreword;
Preface;
Audience and Assumptions;
Contents of This Book;
Versions Covered in This Book;
Conventions Used in This Book;
Using Code Examples;
Safari® Books Online;
How to Contact Us;
Acknowledgments;
Chapter 1: Introduction and Essential Concepts;
1.1 System Programming;
1.2 APIs and ABIs;
1.3 Standards;
1.4 Concepts of Linux Programming;
1.5 Getting Started with System Programming;
Chapter 2: File I/O;
2.1 Opening Files;
2.2 Reading via read();
2.3 Writing with write();
2.4 Synchronized I/O;
2.5 Direct I/O;
2.6 Closing Files;
2.7 Seeking with lseek();
2.8 Positional Reads and Writes;
2.9 Truncating Files;
2.10 Multiplexed I/O;
2.11 Kernel Internals;
2.12 Conclusion;
Chapter 3: Buffered I/O;
3.1 User-Buffered I/O;
3.2 Standard I/O;
3.3 Opening Files;
3.4 Opening a Stream via File Descriptor;
3.5 Closing Streams;
3.6 Reading from a Stream;
3.7 Writing to a Stream;
3.8 Sample Program Using Buffered I/O;
3.9 Seeking a Stream;
3.10 Flushing a Stream;
3.11 Errors and End-of-File;
3.12 Obtaining the Associated File Descriptor;
3.13 Controlling the Buffering;
3.14 Thread Safety;
3.15 Critiques of Standard I/O;
3.16 Conclusion;
Chapter 4: Advanced File I/O;
4.1 Scatter/Gather I/O;
4.2 Event Poll;
4.3 Mapping Files into Memory;
4.4 Advice for Normal File I/O;
4.5 Synchronized, Synchronous, and Asynchronous Operations;
4.6 I/O Schedulers and I/O Performance;
4.7 Conclusion;
Chapter 5: Process Management;
5.1 Programs, Processes, and Threads;
5.2 The Process ID;
5.3 Running a New Process;
5.4 Terminating a Process;
5.5 Waiting for Terminated Child Processes;
5.6 Users and Groups;
5.7 Sessions and Process Groups;
5.8 Daemons;
5.9 Conclusion;
Chapter 6: Advanced Process Management;
6.1 Process Scheduling;
6.2 The Completely Fair Scheduler;
6.3 Yielding the Processor;
6.4 Process Priorities;
6.5 Processor Affinity;
6.6 Real-Time Systems;
6.7 Resource Limits;
Chapter 7: Threading;
7.1 Binaries, Processes, and Threads;
7.2 Multithreading;
7.3 Threading Models;
7.4 Threading Patterns;
7.5 Concurrency, Parallelism, and Races;
7.6 Synchronization;
7.7 Pthreads;
7.8 Further Study;
Chapter 8: File and Directory Management;
8.1 Files and Their Metadata;
8.2 Directories;
8.3 Links;
8.4 Copying and Moving Files;
8.5 Device Nodes;
8.6 Out-of-Band Communication;
8.7 Monitoring File Events;
Chapter 9: Memory Management;
9.1 The Process Address Space;
9.2 Allocating Dynamic Memory;
9.3 Managing the Data Segment;
9.4 Anonymous Memory Mappings;
9.5 Advanced Memory Allocation;
9.6 Debugging Memory Allocations;
9.7 Stack-Based Allocations;
9.8 Choosing a Memory Allocation Mechanism;
9.9 Manipulating Memory;
9.10 Locking Memory;
9.11 Opportunistic Allocation;
Chapter 10: Signals;
10.1 Signal Concepts;
10.2 Basic Signal Management;
10.3 Sending a Signal;
10.4 Reentrancy;
10.5 Signal Sets;
10.6 Blocking Signals;
10.7 Advanced Signal Management;
10.8 Sending a Signal with a Payload;
10.9 A Flaw in Unix?;
Chapter 11: Time;
11.1 Time's Data Structures;
11.2 POSIX Clocks;
11.3 Getting the Current Time of Day;
11.4 Setting the Current Time of Day;
11.5 Playing with Time;
11.6 Tuning the System Clock;
11.7 Sleeping and Waiting;
11.8 Timers;
GCC Extensions to the C Language;
GNU C;
Inline Functions;
Suppressing Inlining;
Pure Functions;
Constant Functions;
Functions That Do Not Return;
Functions That Allocate Memory;
Forcing Callers to Check the Return Value;
Marking Functions as Deprecated;
Marking Functions as Used;
Marking Functions or Parameters as Unused;
Packing a Structure;
Increasing the Alignment of a Variable;
Placing Global Variables in a Register;
Branch Annotation;
Getting the Type of an Expression;
Getting the Alignment of a Type;
The Offset of a Member Within a Structure;
Obtaining the Return Address of a Function;
Case Ranges;
Void and Function Pointer Arithmetic;
More Portable and More Beautiful in One Fell Swoop;
Bibliography;
Books on the C Programming Language;
Books on Linux Programming;
Books on the Linux Kernel;
Books on Operating System Design;
Index;
Colophon;

About the author

Robert Love has been a Linux user and hacker since the early days. He is active in--and passionate about--the Linux kernel and GNOME desktop communities. His recent contributions to the Linux kernel include work on the kernel event layer and inotify. GNOME-related contributions include Beagle, GNOME Volume Manager, NetworkManager, and Project Utopia. Currently, Robert works in the Open Source Program Office at Google.Robert is the author of Linux Kernel Development (SAMS 2005) and the co-author of Linux in a Nutshell (2006 O'Reilly). He is also a Contributing Editor at Linux Journal. He is currently working on a new work for O'Reilly that will be the greatest book ever written, give or take. Robert holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Florida. A proud Gator, Robert was born in South Florida but currently calls home Cambridge, MA.

Summary

Write software that draws directly on services offered by the Linux kernel and core system libraries. With this comprehensive book, Linux kernel contributor Robert Love provides you with a tutorial on Linux system programming, a reference manual on Linux system calls, and an insider's guide to writing smarter, faster code.

Product details

• Authors: Robert Love, Love Robert
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.06.2013
• EAN: 9781449339531
• ISBN: 978-1-4493-3953-1
• No. of pages: 456
• Dimensions: 178 mm x 231 mm x 24 mm
• Weight: 736 g
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > Operating systems, user interfaces; Open-Source und sonstige Betriebssysteme, sockets, signals, kernel, Linux, processes, Linux kernel programming sockets signals processes