This book is one that any Solaris systems programmer will want on their shelf. Sun Microsystems' Solaris Operating Environment boasts a significant installed base, but the intricacies of programming in this UNIX environment have been previously unaddressed in book format. In this thorough new book, the author provides context that allows the reader to better understand the subtleties of the Solaris Operating Environment. He explains not only the "how's" but also the "why's" of Solaris programming, complete with a brief history of the operating system. The result is a comprehensive text that Solaris practitioners will refer to time and again as they face and overcome the significant challenges of their everyday work.

Table of Contents:
List of Programs. List of Figures. Preface. PART I. INTRODUCTION. 1. Introduction. Introduction. Logging In. Shells. Files, Directories, and File Systems. Input and Output. Programs, Processes, and Threads. Error Handling. User Identification. Signals. UNIX Time Values. System Calls and Library Functions. Introduction to 64-Bit Programming. Writing 64-Bit Clean Programs. Compiling and Installing 64-Bit Programs. The Large File Compilation Environment. The Transitional Large File Compilation Environment. Summary. 2. Chapter Title?   Introduction. The Early Days: SunOS. Beyond SunOS: Solaris. Standards. ANSI/ISO/IEC C. System V Interface Definition. IEEE POSIX. The Open Group’s XPG4. The Single UNIX Specification. Solaris 2.5. Solaris 2.5.1  Solaris 2.6. Solaris 7. Solaris 8. Solaris 9. Solaris Standards Compliance. Compiling Standards Conforming Applications. Summary. PART II. FUNDAMENTAL TOPICS. 3. Utility Functions. Introduction. Manipulating Character Classes. Testing Character Class Membership. Changing Character Class Membership. Summary of Character Classes. Manipulating Character Strings. Finding the Length of a String. Comparing Strings. String Concatenation. Copying Strings. String Searching Functions. Duplicating Strings. Splitting a String into Tokens. Functions for Transforming Strings. Converting Strings to Numbers. Converting Numbers to Strings. Manipulating Byte Arrays. Comparing Byte Arrays. Copying Byte Arrays. Searching Byte Arrays. Initializing Byte Arrays. Dynamic Memory. Memory Alignment. Allocating Dynamic Memory. Freeing Dynamic Memory. Other Memory Management Packages. The malloc Library. The bsdmalloc Library. The mapmalloc Library. The watchmalloc Shared Object. Comparing the malloc Libraries. Temporary Files. Generating Temporary Filenames. Creating Temporary Files. Parsing Command Line Arguments. Error Repor ting. Suspending a Process. Summary. 4. Basic File I/O. Introduction. File Descriptors. The open Function. The creat Function. The close and closefrom Functions. The lseek and llseek Functions. The tell Function. The read and pread Functions. The write and pwrite Functions. The readn and writen Functions. I/O Efficiency. File Sharing. Atomic Operations. The dup and dup2 Functions. The fcntl Function. The ioctl Function. The fdwalk Function. Direct I/O. The /dev/fd File System. Summary. 5. The Standard I/O Library. Introduction. File Streams, Data Types, and Constants. Standard Input, Standard Output, and Standard Error. Opening a File Stream. Closing a File Stream. Reading and Writing. Character Input Functions. Character Output Functions. Line Input Functions. Line Output Functions. Binary I/O. Stream Status. For matted I/O. Formatted Output. Formatted Input. For mat Conversion Specifications. C Language Escape Sequences. Positioning a Stream. File Stream Locking. Unlocked File Stream I/O. Buffering. Standard I/O Efficiency. Summary. 6. Date and Time Operations. Introduction. The Complexities of Converting Time. Getting the Current Time. The difftime Function. Setting the Current Time. Getting the Current Time Zone. Converting between UNIX Time and Calendar Time. The localtime and localtime_r Functions. The gmtime and gmtime_r Functions. The mktime Function. For matted Date I/O. Converting a Date to a For matted String. Converting a For matted String to a Date. Summary. 7. Users and Groups. Introduction. User Names. User IDs. Group IDs. Group Membership. The Password File. The Shadow Password File. Reading and Encrypting Passwords. The Group File. The utmpx and wtmpx Files. The utmp and wtmp Files. The lastlog File. The shells File. Summary. 8. System Information and Resource Limits. Introduction. System Information and Identification. System Resource Limits. Per-Process Resource Limits. The Resource Control Facility. Resource Control Examples. Resource Usage Information. Determining Resource Usage Using the /proc File System. Determining the System’s Load Average. Summary. 9. Secure C Programming. Introduction. Buffer Overflows. The Program’s Environment. Defensive Programming. The Principle of Least Privilege. Using chroot Jails. Tips For Writing Secure Programs. Summary. PART III. INPUT/OUTPUT. 10. Files and Directories. Introduction. Pathname Components. The stat , fstat , and lstat Functions. File Types. Set-User-ID and Set-Group-ID. The Sticky Bit. File Access Permissions. The access Function. The umask Function. The chmod and fchmod Functions. The chown , fchown , and lchown Functions. File Size. File Truncation. File Systems. The link and unlink Functions. The remove and rename Functions. Symbolic Links. Resolving Paths that Might Contain Symbolic Links. The symlink and readlink Functions. File Times. Changing a File’s Access and Modification Times. Creating and Removing Directories. Reading Directories. The chdir , fchdir , and getcwd Functions. The chroot and fchroot Functions. Special Files. The sync and fsync Functions. Putting It All Together. Summary. 11. Working with File Systems. Introduction. Disk Terminology. The Mounted File System Table. The mntfs File System ioctl commands. File System Defaults. Mounting and Unmounting File Systems. Obtaining the Status of a File System. Reading File System Data Structures. Summary. 12. Terminal I/O. Introduction. Overview of Terminal I/O. Special Input Characters. Getting and Setting Terminal Attributes. Terminal Option Flags. Baud Rate Functions. Line Control Functions. Terminal Identification. Canonical Mode. Non-Canonical Mode. Terminal Window Size. Device-Independent Terminal Control. Summary. 13. Advanced I/O. Introduction. Nonblocking I/O. Record Locking. Record Locking Using fcntl. Record Locking Using lockf. Deadlock and Livelock. Lock Inheritance and Release. Mandatory Versus Advisory Locking. The STREAMS I/O Subsystem. STREAMS Messages. The putmsg and putpmsg Functions. The getmsg and getpmsg Functions. STREAMS ioctl Operations. STREAMS I/O Using read and write. I/O Multiplexing. The select Function. The poll Function. The /dev/poll Device Driver. Asynchronous I/O. Asynchronous I/O With STREAMS Device Files. Asynchronous I/O With Other Files. The readv and writev Functions. The sendfile and sendfilev Functions. Memory Mapped I/O. The mmap and munmap Functions. The mprotect Function. The madvise Function. The msync Function. Locking Pages in Memory. The memcntl Function. Summary of Memory Mapped I/O. Access Control Lists. The acl and facl Functions. The aclfromtext and acltotext Functions. The aclcheck Function. The aclfrommode and acltomode Functions. The aclsort Function. Extended File Attributes. The openat and attropen Functions. The fstatat Function. The unlinkat Function. The renameat Function. The fchownat Function. The futimesat Function. Changing Extended Attribute File Permissions. Summary. PART IV. PROCESSES AND PROCESS CONTROL. 14. The Environment of a UNIX Process. Introduction. Process Star t-Up. Process Termination. Command Line Arguments. Environment Variables. The Memory Layout of a C Program. Shared Objects. Memory Allocation. The setjmp and longjmp Functions. Resource Limits. Summary. 15. Process Control. Introduction. Process Identifiers. The fork and fork1 Functions. The vfork Function. The exit and _exit Functions. The wait Function. The waitpid Function. The wait3 and wait4 Functions. The waitid Function. Race Conditions. The exec Functions. Interpreter Files. The system Function. Process Accounting. Summary. 16. Process Relationships. Introduction. Terminal Logins. Network Logins. Process Groups. Sessions. Controlling Terminal. The tcgetpgrp and tcsetpgrp Functions. The tcgetsid Function. Job Control. Shell Execution of Programs. Orphaned Process Groups. Summary. 17. Signals. Introduction. Signal Concepts. The signal Function. Unreliable Signals. Reliable Signals. The sigset Function. The pause Function. The sighold , sigrelse , sigignore , and sigpause Functions. Interrupted System Calls. Reentrant Functions Comparing the SIGCHLD and SIGCLD Signals. The kill , killpg , raise , sigsend , and sigsendset Functions. The alarm Function. Interval Timers. POSIX Signals. Signal Sets. The sigprocmask Function. The sigpending Function. The sigaction Function. The sigfpe Function. The sigsetjmp and siglongjmp Functions. The sigsuspend Function. The sigwait Function. The abort Function. The system Function Revisited. The sleep Function Revisited. Job Control Signals. Software Signals. Alternate Signal Stacks. System Signal Messages. The sig2str and str2sig Functions. Summary. 18. Daemon Processes. Introduction. Characteristics of Daemons. Error Logging. The STREAMS log Driver. The syslog Facility. Becoming a Daemon. Starting Only One Copy of a Daemon. Summary. PART V. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION. 19. Interprocess Communication Using Pipes and FIFOs. Introduction. Pipes. The popen and pclose Functions. Coprocesses. FIFOs. Iterative Versus Concurrent Servers. Summary. 20. The System V Interprocess Communication Facility. Introduction. System V IPC Concepts. System V Message Queues. System V Semaphores Sets. System V Shared Memory. Performance Comparisons. Summary. 21. Advanced Interprocess Communication. Introduction. Passing File Descriptors. An Open Server, Version 1. Client-Server Connection Functions. An Open Server, Version 2. Summary. 22. Doors. Introduction. Basic Door Functions. Door Information Functions. Advanced Door Facilities. Premature Termination of a Door Client or Server. Summary. PART VI. PSEUDO TERMINALS. 23. Pseudo Terminals. Introduction. Overview. Opening a Pseudo Terminal Device. The pty_fork Function. The pty Program. Using the pty Program. Advanced Features. Summary. Appendix A. An Internationalization and Localization Primer. Introduction. Locales. The setlocale Function. Message Catalogues. Creating a Message Catalogue. The bindtextdomain Function. The gettext , dgettext , and dcgettext Functions. The textdomain Function. The strcoll and strxfrm Functions. Checklist for Writing Internationalized Programs. Summary. Appendix B. The BSD Source Compatibility Package. Introduction. Functions That Have Been Removed from the SCP. Obsolescent SCP-Originated Functions. SCP-Originated Functions That Are Not Obsolescent. Summary. Appendix C. Function Summary. Introduction. Function Prototypes. Function Availability. Appendix D. Miscellaneous Source Code. Our Header File, ssp.h. Standard Error Functions. File Status Flags Functions. Section Locking Function. Our readn and writen Functions. Ter mination Status Function. Our Version of snprintf. Appendix E. Solutions to Selected Exercises. Bibliography. Index.