- Copyright 2005
- Edition: 2nd
-
Book
- ISBN-10: 0-201-43307-9
- ISBN-13: 978-0-201-43307-4
"Stephen Rago's update is a long overdue benefit to the community of professionals using the versatile family of UNIX and UNIX-like operating environments. It removes obsolescence and includes newer developments. It also thoroughly updates the context of all topics, examples, and applications to recent releases of popular implementations of UNIX and UNIX-like environments. And yet, it does all this while retaining the style and taste of the original classic."
--Mukesh Kacker, cofounder and former CTO of Pronto Networks, Inc.
"One of the essential classics of UNIX programming."
--Eric S. Raymond, author of The Art of UNIX Programming
"This is the definitive reference book for any serious or professional UNIX systems programmer. Rago has updated and extended the classic Stevens text while keeping true to the original. The APIs are illuminated by clear examples of their use. He also mentions many of the pitfalls to look out for when programming across different UNIX system implementations and points out how to avoid these pitfalls using relevant standards such as POSIX 1003.1, 2004 edition and the Single UNIX Specification, Version 3."
--Andrew Josey, Director, Certification, The Open Group, and Chair of the POSIX 1003.1 Working Group
"Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment, Second Edition, is an essential reference for anyone writing programs for a UNIX system. It's the first book I turn to when I want to understand or re-learn any of the various system interfaces. Stephen Rago has successfully revised this book to incorporate newer operating systems such as GNU/Linux and Apple's OS X while keeping true to the first edition in terms of both readability and usefulness. It will always have a place right next to my computer."
--Dr. Benjamin Kuperman, Swarthmore College
Praise for the First Edition
"Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment is a must-have for any serious C programmer who works under UNIX. Its depth, thoroughness, and clarity of explana-tion are unmatched."
--UniForum Monthly
"Numerous readers recommended Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment by W. Richard Stevens (Addison-Wesley), and I'm glad they did; I hadn't even heard of this book, and it's been out since 1992. I just got my hands on a copy, and the first few chapters have been fascinating."
--Open Systems Today
"A much more readable and detailed treatment of UNIX internals can be found in Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment by W. Richard Stevens (Addison-Wesley). This book includes lots of realistic examples, and I find it quite helpful when I have systems programming tasks to do."
--RS/Magazine
"This is the definitive reference book for any serious or professional UNIX systems programmer. Rago has updated and extended the original Stevens classic while keeping true to the original."
--Andrew Josey, Director, Certification, The Open Group, and Chair of the POSIX 1003.1 Working Group
For over a decade, serious C programmers have relied on one book for practical, in-depth knowledge of the programming interfaces that drive the UNIX and Linux kernels: W. Richard Stevens' Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment. Now, Stevens' colleague Stephen Rago has thoroughly updated this classic to reflect the latest technical advances and add support for today's leading UNIX and Linux platforms.
Rago carefully retains the spirit and approach that made this book a classic. Building on Stevens' work, he begins with basic topics such as files, directories, and processes, carefully laying the groundwork for understanding more advanced techniques, such as signal handling and terminal I/O.
Substantial new material includes chapters on threads and multithreaded programming, using the socket interface to drive interprocess communication (IPC), and extensive coverage of the interfaces added to the latest version of the POSIX.1 standard. Nearly all examples have been tested on four of today's most widely used UNIX/Linux platforms: FreeBSD 5.2.1; the Linux 2.4.22 kernel; Solaris 9; and Darwin 7.4.0, the FreeBSD/Mach hybrid underlying Apple's Mac OS X 10.3.
As in the first edition, you'll learn through example, including more than 10,000 lines of downloadable, ANSI C source code. More than 400 system calls and functions are demonstrated with concise, complete programs that clearly illustrate their usage, arguments, and return values. To tie together what you've learned, the book presents several chapter-length case studies, each fully updated for contemporary environments.
Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment has helped a generation of programmers write code with exceptional power, performance, and reliability. Now updated for today's UNIX/Linux systems, this second edition will be even more indispensable.
Table of Contents
Foreword.
Preface.
Preface to the First Edition.
1. UNIX System Overview.
Introduction.
UNIX Architecture.
Logging In.
Files and Directories.
Input and Output.
Programs and Processes.
Error Handling.
User Identification.
Signals.
Time Values.
System Calls and Library Functions.
Summary.
2. UNIX Standardization and Implementations.
Introduction.
UNIX Standardization.
UNIX System Implementations.
Relationship of Standards and Implementations.
Limits.
Options.
Feature Test Macros.
Primitive System Data Types.
Conflicts Between Standards.
Summary.
3. File I/O.
Introduction.
File Descriptors.
open Function.
creat Function.
closeFunction.
lseek Function.
read Function.
write Function.
I/O Efficiency.
File Sharing.
Atomic Operations.
dup and dup2 Functions.
sync, fsync, and fdatasync Functions.
fcntl Function.
ioctl Function.
/dev/fd.
Summary.
4. Files and Directories.
Introduction.
stat, fstat, and lstat Functions.
File Types.
Set-User-ID and Set-Group-ID.
File Access Per missions.
Ownership of New Files and Directories.
access Function.
umask Function.
chmodand fchmod Functions.
Sticky Bit.
chown, fchown, and lchown Functions.
File Size.
File Truncation.
File Systems.
link, unlink, remove, and rename Functions.
Symbolic Links.
symlinkand readlink Functions.
File Times.
utime Function.
mkdirand rmdir Functions.
Reading Director ies.
chdir, fchdir, and getcwd Functions.
Device Special Files.
Summary of File Access Per mission Bits.
Summary.
5. Standard I/O Library.
Introduction.
Streams and FILE Objects.
Standard Input, Standard Output, and Standard Error.
Buffering.
Opening a Stream.
Reading and Writing a Stream.
Line-at-a-Time I/O.
Standard I/O Efficiency.
Binary I/O.
Positioning a Stream.
Formatted I/O.
Implementation Details.
Temporary Files.
Alternatives to Standard I/O.
Summary.
6. System Data Files and Information.
Introduction.
Password File.
Shadow Passwords.
Group File.
Supplementary Group Ids.
Implementation Differences.
Other Data Files.
Login Accounting.
System Identification.
Time and Date Routines.
Summary.
7. Process Environment.
Introduction.
main Function.
Process Termination.
Command-Line Arguments.
Environment List.
Memory Layout of a C Program.
Shared Libraries.
Memory Allocation.
Environment Variables.
setjmp and longjmp Functions.
getrlimit and setrlimit Functions.
Summary.
8. Process Control.
Introduction.
Process Identifiers.
fork Function.
vfork Function.
exit Functions.
waitand waitpid Functions.
waitid Function.
wait3and wait4Functions.
Race Conditions.
exec Functions.
Changing User IDs and Group IDs.
Interpreter Files.
system Function.
Process Accounting.
User Identification.
Process Times.
Summary.
9. Process Relationships.
Introduction.
Terminal Logins.
Network Logins.
Process Groups.
Sessions.
Controlling Terminal.
tcgetpgrp, tcsetpgrp, and tcgetsid Functions.
Job Control.
Shell Execution of Programs.
Orphaned Process Groups.
FreeBSD Implementation.
Summary.
10. Signals.
Introduction.
Signal Concepts.
signal Function.
Unreliable Signals.
Interrupted System Calls.
Reentrant Functions.
SIGCLD Semantics.
Reliable-Signal Terminology and Semantics.
killand raise Functions.
alarmand pause Functions.
Signal Sets.
sigprocmask Function.
sigpending Function.
sigaction Function.
sigsetjmp and siglongjmp Functions.
sigsuspend Function.
abort Function.
system Function.
sleep Function.
Job-Control Signals.
Additional Features.
Summary.
11. Threads.
Introduction.
Thread Concepts.
Thread Identification.
Thread Creation.
Thread Termination.
Thread Synchronization.
Summary.
12. Thread Control.
Introduction.
Thread Limits.
hread Attributes.
Synchronization Attributes.
Reentrancy.
Thread-Specific Data.
Cancel Options.
Threads and Signals.
Threads and fork.
Threads and I/O.
Summary.
13. Daemon Processes.
Introduction.
Daemon Characteristics.
Coding Rules.
Error Logging.
Single-Instance Daemons.
Daemon Conventions.
Client-Server Model.
Summary.
14. Advanced I/O.
Introduction.
Nonblocking I/O.
Record Locking.
STREAMS.
I/O Multiplexing.
2 poll Function.
Asynchronous I/O.
readv and writev Functions.
readn and written Functions.
Memory-Mapped I/O.
Summary.
15. Interprocess Communication.
Introduction.
Pipes.
popen and pclose Functions.
Coprocesses.
FIFOs.
XSI IPC.
Message Queues.
Semaphores.
Shared Memory.
Client-Server Properties.
Summary.
16. Network IPC: Sockets.
Introduction.
Socket Descriptors.
Addressing.
Connection Establishment.
Data Transfer.
Socket Options.
Out-of-Band Data.
Nonblocking and Asynchronous I/O.
Summary.
17 Advanced IPC.
Introduction.
STREAMS-Based Pipes.
Unique Connections.
Passing File Descriptors.
An Open Server, Version 1.
An Open Server, Version 2.
Summary.
18. Terminal I/O.
Introduction.
Overview.
Special Input Characters.
Getting and Setting Terminal Attributes.
Terminal Option Flags.
stty Command.
Baud Rate Functions.
Line Control Functions.
Terminal Identification.
Canonical Mode.
Noncanonical Mode.
Terminal Window Size.
termcap, terminfo, and curses.
Summary.
19. Pseudo Terminals.
Introduction.
Overview.
Opening Pseudo-Terminal Devices.
pty_fork Function.
pty Program.
Using the pty Program.
Advanced Features.
Summary.
20. A Database Library.
Introduction.
History.
The Library.
Implementation Overview.
Centralized or Decentralized?
Concurrency.
Building the Library.
Source Code.
Performance.
Summary.
21. Communicating with a Network Printer.
Introduction.
The Inter net Printing Protocol.
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
Printer Spooling.
Source Code.
Summary.
Appendix A. Function Prototypes.
Appendix B. Miscellaneous Source Code.
Our Header File.
Standard Error Routines.
Appendix C. Solutions to Selected Exercises.
Bibliography.
Index.
Preface
Untitled Document
Introduction
Rich Stevens and I first met through an e-mail exchange when I reported a typographical
error in his first book, UNIX Network Programming. He used to kid me
about being the person to send him his first errata notice for the book. Until
his death in 1999, we exchanged e-mail irregularly, usually when one of us had
a question we thought the other might be able to answer. We met for dinner at
USENIX conferences and when Rich was teaching in the area.
Rich Stevens was a friend who always conducted himself as a gentleman. When
I wrote UNIX System V Network Programming in 1993, I intended it to
be a System V version of Rich's UNIX Network Programming. As was his
nature, Rich gladly reviewed chapters for me, and treated me not as a competitor,
but as a colleague. We often talked about collaborating on a STREAMS version
of his TCP/IP Illustrated book. Had events been different, we might
have actually done it, but since Rich is no longer with us, revising Advanced
Programming in the UNIX Environment is the closest I'll ever get to writing
a book with him.
When the editors at Addison-Wesley told me that they wanted to update Rich's
book, I thought that there wouldn't be too much to change. Even after 13 years,
Rich's work still holds up well. But the UNIX industry is vastly different today
from what it was when the book was first published.
- The System V variants are slowly being replaced by Linux. The major system
vendors that ship their hardware with their own versions of the UNIX System
have either made Linux ports available or announced support for Linux. Solaris
is perhaps the last descendant of UNIX System V Release 4 with any appreciable
market share.
- After 4.4BSD was released, the Computing Science Research Group (CSRG) from
the University of California at Berkeley decided to put an end to its development
of the UNIX operating system, but several different groups of volunteers still
maintain publicly available versions.
- The introduction of Linux, supported by thousands of volunteers, has made
it possible for anyone with a computer to run an operating system similar
to the UNIX System, with freely available source code for the newest hardware
devices. The success of Linux is something of a curiosity, given that several
free BSD alternatives are readily available.
- Continuing its trend as an innovative company, Apple Computer abandoned
its old Mac operating system and replaced it with one based on Mach and FreeBSD.
Thus, I've tried to update the information presented in this book to reflect
these four platforms.
After Rich wrote Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment in 1992, I got
rid of most of my UNIX programmer 's manuals. To this day, the two books I keep
closest to my desk are a dictionary and a copy of Advanced Programming in the
UNIX Environment. I hope you find this revision equally useful.
Changes from the First Edition
Rich's work holds up well. I've tried not to change his original vision for
this book, but a lot has happened in 13 years. This is especially true with the
standards that affect the UNIX programming interface.
Throughout the book, I've updated interfaces that have changed from the ongoing
efforts in standards organizations. This is most noticeable in Chapter 2, since
its primary topic is standards. The 2001 version of the POSIX.1 standard, which
we use in this revision, is much more comprehensive than the 1990 version on
which the first edition of this book was based. The 1990 ISO C standard was
updated in 1999, and some changes affect the interfaces in the POSIX.1 standard.
A lot more interfaces are now covered by the POSIX.1 specification. The base
specifications of the Single UNIX Specification (published by The Open Group,
formerly X/Open) have been merged with POSIX.1. POSIX.1 now includes several
1003.1 standards and draft standards that were formerly published separately.
Accordingly, I've added chapters to cover some new topics. Threads and multithreaded
programming are important concepts because they present a cleaner way for programmers
to deal with concurrency and asynchrony.
The socket interface is now part of POSIX.1. It provides a single interface
to interprocess communication (IPC), regardless of the location of the process,
and is a natural extension of the IPC chapters.
I've omitted most of the real-time interfaces that appear in POSIX.1. These
are best treated in a text devoted to real-time programming. One such book appears
in the bibliography.
I've updated the case studies in the last chapters to cover more relevant real-world
examples. For example, few systems these days are connected to a PostScript
printer via a serial or parallel port. Most PostScript printers today are accessed
via a network, so I've changed the case study that deals with PostScript printer
communication to take this into account.
The chapter on modem communication is less relevant these days. So that the
original material is not lost, however, it is available on the book's Web site
in two formats: PostScript (http://www.apuebook.com/lostchapter/modem.ps)
and PDF (http://www.apuebook.com/lostchapter/modem.pdf).
The source code for the examples shown in this book is also available at www.apuebook.com.
Most of the examples have been run on four platforms:
- FreeBSD 5.2.1, a derivative of the 4.4BSD release from the Computer Systems
Research Group at the University of California at Berkeley, running on an
Intel Pentium processor
- Linux 2.4.22 (the Mandrake 9.2 distribution), a free UNIX-like operating
system, running on Intel Pentium processors
- Solaris 9, a derivative of System V Release 4 from Sun Microsystems, running
on a64-bit UltraSPARC IIi processor
- Darwin 7.4.0, an operating environment based on FreeBSD and Mach, supported
by Apple Mac OS X, version 10.3, on a PowerPC processor
Stephen A. Rago
Warren, New Jersey
April 2005
sar@apuebook.com
Preface to the First Edition
Introduction
This book describes the programming interface to the Unix system--the system call
interface and many of the functions provided in the standard C library. It is
intended for anyone writing programs that run under Unix.
Like most operating systems, Unix provides numerous services to the programs
that are running -- open a file, read a file, start a new program, allocate
a region of memory, get the current time-of-day, and so on. This has been termed
the system call interface. Additionally, the standard C library provides numerous
functions that are used by almost every C program (format a variable's value
for output, compare two strings, etc.).
The system call interface and the library routines have traditionally been
described in Sections 2 and 3 of the Unix Programmer 's Manual. This book is
not a duplication of these sections. Examples and rationale are missing from
the Unix Programmer 's Manual, and that's what this book provides.
Unix Standards
The proliferation of different versions of Unix during the 1980s has been tempered
by the various international standards that were started during the late 1980s.
These include the ANSI standard for the C programming language, the IEEE POSIX
family (still being developed), and the X/Open portability guide. This book
also describes these standards. But instead of just describing the standards
by themselves, we describe them in relation to popular implementations of the
standards -- System V Release 4 and the forthcoming 4.4BSD. This provides a
real-world description, which is often lacking from the standard itself and
from books that describe only the standard.
Organization of the Book
This book is divided into six parts:
An overview and introduction to basic Unix programming concepts and terminology
(Chapter 1), with a discussion of the various Unix standardization efforts and
different Unix implementations (Chapter 2).
- I/O--unbuffered I/O (Chapter 3), properties of files and directories (Chapter
4), the standard I/O library (Chapter 5), and the standard system data files
(Chapter 6).
- Processes -- the environment of a Unix process (Chapter 7), process control
(Chapter 8), the relationships between different processes (Chapter 9), and
signals (Chapter 10).
- More I/O -- terminal I/O (Chapter 11), advanced I/O (Chapter 12), and daemon
processes (Chapter 13).
- IPC--Interprocess communication (Chapters 14 and 15).
- Examples--a database library (Chapter 16), communicating with a PostScript
printer (Chapter 17), a modem dialing program (Chapter 18), and using pseudo
terminals (Chapter 19).
A reading familiarity with C would be beneficial as would some experience using
Unix. No prior programming experience with Unix is assumed. This text is intended
for programmers familiar with Unix and programmers familiar with some other
operating system who wish to learn the details of the services provided by most
Unix systems.
Examples in the Text
This book contains many examples--approximately 10,000 lines of source code.
All the examples are in the C programming language. Furthermore, these examples
are in ANSI C. You should have a copy of the Unix Programmer's Manual for your
system handy while reading this book, since reference is made to it for some
of the more esoteric and implementation-dependent features.
Almost every function and system call is demonstrated with a small, complete
program. This lets us see the arguments and return values and is often easier
to comprehend than the use of the function in a much larger program. But since
some of the small programs are contrived examples, a few bigger examples are
also included (Chapters 16, 17, 18, and 19). These larger examples demonstrate
the programming techniques in larger, real-world examples.
Systems Used to Test the Examples
Unfortunately all operating systems are moving targets. Unix is no exception.
The following diagram shows the recent evolution of the various versions of
System V and 4.xBSD.
4.xBSD are the various systems from the Computer Systems Research Group at
the University of California at Berkeley. This group also distributes the BSD
Net 1 and BSD Net 2 releases -- publicly available source code from the 4.xBSD
systems. SVRx refers to System V Release x from AT&T. XPG3 is the X/Open
Portability Guide, Issue 3, and ANSI C is the ANSI standard for the C programming
language. POSIX.1 is the IEEE and ISO standard for the interface to a Unix-like
system. We'll have more to say about these different standards and the various
versions of Unix in Sections 2.2 and 2.3.
In this text we use the term 4.3+BSDto refer to the Unix system from Berkeley
that is somewhere between the BSD Net 2 release and 4.4BSD. At the time of this
writing, 4.4BSD was not released, so the system could not be called 4.4BSD.
Nevertheless a simple name was needed to refer to this system and 4.3+BSD is
used throughout the text.
Most of the examples in this text have been run on four different versions
of Unix:
Unix System V/386 Release 4.0 Version 2.0 (''vanilla SVR4'') from U.H. Corp.
(UHC), on an Intel 80386 processor.
- 4.3+BSD at the Computer Systems Research Group, Computer Science Division,
University of California at Berkeley, on a Hewlett Packard workstation.
- BSD/386 (a derivative of the BSD Net 2 release) from Berkeley Software Design,
Inc., on an Intel 80386 processor. This system is almost identical to what
we call 4.3+BSD.
- SunOS 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 (systems with a strong Berkeley heritage but many
System V features) from Sun Microsystems, on a SPARCstation SLC.
Numerous timing tests are provided in the text and the systems used for the
test are identified.
W. Richard Stevens
Tucson, Arizona
April 1992
Foreword
Download the Foreword
file related to this title.
Index
Download the Index
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