The Linux Programmer's Guide

Sven Goldt
Sven van der Meer
Scott Burkett
Matt Welsh

Version 0.4
March 1995

• Contents
• 1 The Linux operating system
• 2 The Linux kernel
• 3 The Linux libc package
• 4 System calls
• 5 The ``swiss army knife'' ioctl
• 6 Linux Interprocess Communications
  • 6.1 Introduction
  • 6.2 Half-duplex UNIX Pipes
    • 6.2.1 Basic Concepts
    • 6.2.2 Creating Pipes in C
    • 6.2.3 Pipes the Easy Way!
    • 6.2.4 Atomic Operations with Pipes
    • 6.2.5 Notes on half-duplex pipes:
  • 6.3 Named Pipes (FIFOs - First In First Out)
    • 6.3.1 Basic Concepts
    • 6.3.2 Creating a FIFO
    • 6.3.3 FIFO Operations
    • 6.3.4 Blocking Actions on a FIFO
    • 6.3.5 The Infamous SIGPIPE Signal
  • 6.4 System V IPC
    • 6.4.1 Fundamental Concepts
      • IPC Identifiers
      • IPC Keys
      • The ipcs Command
      • The ipcrm Command
    • 6.4.2 Message Queues
      • Basic Concepts
      • Internal and User Data Structures
      • SYSTEM CALL: msgget()
      • SYSTEM CALL: msgsnd()
      • SYSTEM CALL: msgctl()
      • msgtool: An interactive message queue manipulator
    • 6.4.3 Semaphores
      • Basic Concepts
      • Internal Data Structures
      • SYSTEM CALL: semget()
      • SYSTEM CALL: semop()
      • SYSTEM CALL: semctl()
      • semtool: An interactive semaphore manipulator
      • semstat: A semtool companion program
    • 6.4.4 Shared Memory
      • Basic Concepts
      • Internal and User Data Structures
      • SYSTEM CALL: shmget()
      • SYSTEM CALL: shmat()
      • SYSTEM CALL: shmctl()
      • SYSTEM CALL: shmdt()
      • shmtool: An interactive shared memory manipulator
• 7 Sound Programming
  • 7.1 Programming the internal speaker
  • 7.2 Programming a sound card
• 8 Character Cell Graphics
  • 8.1 I/O Function in libc
    • 8.1.1 Formatted Output
    • 8.1.2 Formatted Input
  • 8.2 The Termcap Library
    • 8.2.1 Introduction
    • 8.2.2 Find a Terminal Description
    • 8.2.3 Look at a Terminal Description
    • 8.2.4 Termcap Capabilities
      • Boolean Capabilities
      • Numeric Capabilities
      • String Capabilities
  • 8.3 Ncurses - Introduction
  • 8.4 Initializing
  • 8.5 Windows
  • 8.6 Output
    • 8.6.1 Formatted Output
    • 8.6.2 Insert Characters/Lines
    • 8.6.3 Delete Characters/Lines
    • 8.6.4 Boxes and Lines
    • 8.6.5 Background Character
  • 8.7 Input
    • 8.7.1 Formated Input
  • 8.8 Options
    • Output Options
    • 8.8.1 Input Options
    • 8.8.2 Terminal Attributes
    • 8.8.3 Use Options
  • 8.9 Clear Window and Lines
  • 8.10 Updating the Terminal
  • 8.11 Video Attributes and Color
  • 8.12 Cursor and Window Coordinates
  • 8.13 Scrolling
  • 8.14 Pads
  • 8.15 Soft-labels
  • 8.16 Miscellaneous
  • 8.17 Low-level Access
  • 8.18 Screen Dump
  • 8.19 Termcap Emulation
  • 8.20 Terminfo Functions
  • 8.21 Debug Function
  • 8.22 Terminfo Capabilities
    • 8.22.1 Boolean Capabilities
    • 8.22.2 Numbers
    • 8.22.3 Strings
  • 8.23 [N]Curses Function Overview
• 9 Programming I/O ports
  • 9.1 Mouse Programming
  • 9.2 Modem Programming
  • 9.3 Printer Programming
  • 9.4 Joystick Programming
• 10 Porting Applications to Linux
  • 10.1 Introduction
  • 10.2 Signal handling
    • 10.2.1 Signals under SVR4, BSD, and POSIX.1
    • 10.2.2 Linux signal options
    • 10.2.3 signal under Linux
    • 10.2.4 Signals supported by Linux
  • 10.3 Terminal I/O
  • 10.4 Process information and control
    • 10.4.1 kvm routines
    • 10.4.2 ptrace and the /proc filesystem
    • 10.4.3 Process control under Linux
  • 10.5 Portable conditional compilation
  • 10.6 Additional Comments
• 11 Systemcalls in alphabetical order
• 12 Abbreviations
• About this document ...