W. Richard Stevens - Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

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Third Edition

W. Richard Stevens
Stephen A. Rago

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stevens, W. Richard.
Advanced programming in the UNIX environment/W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago.
Third edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-321-63773-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Operating systems (Computers) 2. UNIX (Computer file) I. Rago, Stephen A. II. Title.
QA76.76.O63S754 2013
005.432dc23
2013004509

Copyright 2013 Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, or you may fax your request to (201) 236-3290.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-63773-4
ISBN-10: 0-321-63773-9
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Edwards Brothers Malloy in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
First printing, May 2013

Stephen Ragos 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. Its 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 Apples 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

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 explanation are unmatched.

UniForum Monthly

Numerous readers recommended Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens (Addison-Wesley), and Im glad they did; I hadnt even heard of this book, and its 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

For my parents, Len & Grace

At some point during nearly every interview I give, as well as in question periods after talks, I get asked some variant of the same question: Did you expect Unix to last for so long? And of course the answer is always the same: No, we didnt quite anticipate what has happened. Even the observation that the system, in some form, has been around for well more than half the lifetime of the commercial computing industry is now dated.

The course of developments has been turbulent and complicated. Computer technology has changed greatly since the early 1970s, most notably in universal networking, ubiquitous graphics, and readily available personal computing, but the system has somehow managed to accommodate all of these phenomena. The commercial environment, although today dominated on the desktop by Microsoft and Intel, has in some ways moved from single-supplier to multiple sources and, in recent years, to increasing reliance on public standards and on freely available source.