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- /* History:69,1 */
- This is file libc.doc
-
- Contents:
-
- * Features added to libc.a
- * Features missing from libc.a
- * C++ support in libc.a
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- Features added to libc.a:
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- open() has an O_TEXT and O_BINARY in <fcntl.h> to select text or binary
- files, kind-of-like Turbo-C's method.
-
- fopen() etc. now allows a 't' option to denote a DOS text file (an
- _IOTEXT flag in struct FILE tags this), or 'b' to denote a binary (unix
- text) file. For example, fopen("foo", "rt") opens a text file. By
- default, DOS-style files are used. stdin, stdout, stderr are text
- files. To change the default, set the global variable _ftype to O_TEXT
- or O_BINARY.
-
- Both BSD-style bcopy(), bzero(), and bcmp() and SYSV-style memcpy(), memset(),
- memcmp() are supported. bcopy() and memcpy() *can* handle overlapping
- strings properly, although I've been told that most "real" operating systems
- aren't smart enough to do this simple task, so be careful.
-
- BSD-style readv() and writev() are supported.
-
- alloca, obstacks, and gnu's malloc() are included. GCC has a built-in
- alloca also, which gets used if you include nearly any .h file in
- /usr/include.
-
- The time() functions are set to assume PC time is local time, but
- obey the TZ environment variable as in BSD documentation, as long as
- you don't need the tzone files (ie: set tz=EST5 works).
-
- gettimeofday() is accurate to 18.2 Hz, but reports 100 Hz.
- getrusage() returns 0 the first time you call it, and reports 100 Hz.
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- system() is supported, buy fork()/exec() and spawn() aren't. System()
- will return the exit code of the child process.
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- Features missing in libc.a:
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- Anything dealing with multi-user stuff. chown(), chmod(), chgrp(), etc.
- are null functions. You can't even create a read-only file.
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- Anything that assumes "standard files", like /etc/passwd (pwopen()).
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- Curses
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- C++ support:
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- All required extensions, and all modules for standard objects, are
- built into libc.a. No special action is required to utilize C++ features.
- C++ is the recommended language for this set of utilities, and takes
- only slightly longer to compile.
-
- Some of the .h files for C++ have had underscores added to avoid MS-DOS's
- caselessness causing a conflict. For examle, String.h became _string.h.
-