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1 Systems Programming

This document provides an overview of systems programming in the Linux environment. It discusses key Linux concepts like the filesystem, processes, and program arguments. The filesystem allows for file and directory management. Processes are created and managed through process control system calls. Program arguments allow passing input to programs from the command line. Terminal commands like ls, cd, and rm are also covered.

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Tinotenda Kondo
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9 views

1 Systems Programming

This document provides an overview of systems programming in the Linux environment. It discusses key Linux concepts like the filesystem, processes, and program arguments. The filesystem allows for file and directory management. Processes are created and managed through process control system calls. Program arguments allow passing input to programs from the command line. Terminal commands like ls, cd, and rm are also covered.

Uploaded by

Tinotenda Kondo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Systems Programming

1 Linux environment and programming

Linux Environment File management


◦ Unix like ◦ Create, read, or delete files
 Filesystem ◦ List content of directories
 Multi-user
 Multi-process
◦ File attributes and security

 Multi-threaded ◦ Virtual files and directories

◦ POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) compli-


ant
Information management
◦ Linux is only the kernel
◦ Time/date
◦ Kernel
 Core of the operating system
◦ Users and access control

 Contains device drivers ◦ System and software settings


 Allows software to access hardware
 Mediates communication between software
Communication
 Schedules shared resources
 Handles filesystem, virtual devices ◦ Manage connections between applications

◦ User space vs. kernel space ◦ In computer and inter computer communication sys-
tems
 User space is restricted, cannot access hardware
directly ◦ Networking
 User space software can only access their own
memory regions
 Modern CPU can help enforcing these rules Compiling on Linux
◦ The administrator of the system is called root ◦ C code files are simple text files, just use file extension
.c

System calls ◦ GCC is commonly used in Linux for compiling C pro-


grams
◦ Allows applications to reach kernel functionality
◦ You can compile program.c to output using the follow-
◦ This includes even the most basic functionality, includ- ing command
ing reading keys from the keyboard
gcc -o output program.c
◦ Separate from library functions, which themselves also
use system calls. System calls resides in kernel space ◦ It is possible to specify multiple c files. Executable files
in Linux do not have extensions
◦ Categories
 Process control ◦ If an external library is needed, you may include it dur-
ing compilation using -l switch:
 File management
 Device management gcc -o output -lpthread program.c
 Information management
 Communication
Terminal commands
◦ Even though Linux has user interface, sometimes it is
Process control faster (for user) and more convenient to use terminal
◦ Create new process and threads ◦ ls: list files, use ls -la to list all files
◦ Start different applications ◦ cd dir : change directory to dir , use .. for parent
directory, start with / to start from the root of the
◦ Kill, control, wait, or signal other processes
filesystem
◦ Resource sharing between processes
◦ rm file : to remove file use rm -rf dir to erase a
◦ More on this next week directory

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◦ mv source dest : to rename source to dest . You
may use this command to move a file to somewhere else

◦ cp source dest : to copy a file


◦ pwd: prints the current directory

Program arguments
◦ Allows programs to receive input from command line
◦ Using program arguments instead of regular input
should be preferred as program arguments can be spec-
ified easily from another application
◦ Instead of int main(void), use int main(int argc ,
char *argv [])
◦ argc is the number of arguments. First argument is
the name of the program, so this value should at least
be one

◦ argv is the argument vector. It contains arguments


starting from the name of the program. This array has
one NULL element at the end.
◦ The following program prints out all the given argu-
ments given to the program

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {


char **arg = argv;

while(*arg) {
printf("%s\n", *arg);
arg++;
}

return 0;
}

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