UNIX/ Linux for Programmers

Description

This course covers programming UNIX / Linux with both system calls and shell programming. The five day class combines lecture with hands-on exercises. This class assumes the student has used UNIX / Linux for a few months and has programmed in C for six months.

Objectives

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Write programs that interface with the operating system
• Write shell scripts in both Bourne and C shell languages
• Understand the options for user interface development

Author

The instructor is Kenneth Pugh. Mr. Pugh has many years of experience in programming a variety of languages and operating systems. He is author of several books, including C Language for Programmers, All on C, and UNIX for MS-DOS Users (in preparation). He was a columnist for the C User's Journal and the C++ Journal. He has been on the faculty of the University of Hawaii and Wellesley College.

Outline

• Introduction to System Calls
  • System calls versus library calls
  • Error handling
  • Differences between UNIX systems
• Files and Devices
  • Information node (inode)
  • File permissions
  • File creation mask
• I/O System
  • Creating and opening files
  • Reading, writing, and seeking
• Pathnames
  • Changing modes and owners
  • Making and reading links
• Directories
  • Making and changing directories
  • Reading directories
• File Descriptors
  • Duplicating file descriptors
  • File locking and unlocking lockf, flock, and fcntl
• File Systems
  • Forcing writes to disk
  • Mounting and unmounting
• Processes
  • The process table
  • Real user and effective user
  • Resource limitations
• Environment
  • Getting and setting user ids
  • Getting process information
  • Setting priorities and limits
• Processes
  • Terminating processes
  • Creating new processes
  • Executing a program
  • Waiting for child processes
• Interprocess communication
  • Signal handlers
  • Blocking signals
  • Creating pipes
  • Messages
  • Semaphores
  • Shared memory
• Shell programming
  • Shell operators
    • I/O Redirection
    • Running in background
  • Shell facets
    • Shell variables
    • Regular expressions
    • Debugging shell scripts
  • Shell control flow (Bourne)
    • if-else
    • for
    • while
    • case
  • Shell control flow (C Shell)
    • if-then
    • for
    • while
• User Interface
  • Terminal based curses
  • Graphic based
    • X-Windows
    • Motif
    • Open Look