On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 10:25:58PM -0600, G. Adam Stanislav wrote:
gcc does not generate code that can make FreeBSD system calls directly.
Most system calls as we know them by the manual have corresponding
wrappers in libc. See /usr/src/lib/libc if you have the source installed.
> Whatever section 2 of man says does not work when making direct kernel
> calls. It only describes how the C library calls work.
> For example, open() returns -1 if the file is not open. But int 80h
> made in assembly language with EAX = 5 (SYS_open) returns a positive
> value whether or not the file was opened. My tests show it returns 2
> if the open fails, or a valid file descriptor otherwise. But can I
> rely on it being the case with other versions of FreeBSD (I have 3.1)?
If you're invoking syscalls directly, you're going to find yourself
duplicating a lot of the conveniance that it provides.
> Please don't tell me to read the kernel source code: I am not about
> to spend weeks or months wading through it just so I can write free
> software. (Quite frankly I tried, but I often have no clue as to which
> file contains the code I am looking for.)
This isn't such a daunting task with grep. Source code cross referencers
can also help, but I don't use them nearly as often as I thought I would.
--
Michael Bacarella <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ;finger address for public key
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