Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment Addison-Wesley Professional Computing: Amazon.co.uk: W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago: Books

Product Description

"This is the definitive reference book for any serious or professional UNIX systems programmer. Rago has updated and extended the original Stevens classic while keeping true to the original."

—Andrew Josey, Director, Certification, The Open Group, and Chair of the POSIX 1003.1 Working Group

The same trusted content from the Second Edition, now in paperback!

For over a decade, serious C programmers have relied on one book for practical, in-depth knowledge of the programming interfaces that drive the UNIX and Linux kernels: W. Richard Stevens' Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment. Now, Stevens' colleague Stephen Rago has thoroughly updated this classic to reflect the latest technical advances and add support for today's leading UNIX and Linux platforms.

Rago carefully retains the spirit and approach that made this book a classic. Building on Stevens' work, he begins with basic topics such as files, directories, and processes, carefully laying the groundwork for understanding more advanced techniques, such as signal handling and terminal I/O.

Substantial new material includes chapters on threads and multithreaded programming, using the socket interface to drive interprocess communication (IPC), and extensive coverage of the interfaces added to the latest version of the POSIX.1 standard. Nearly all examples have been tested on four of today's most widely used UNIX/Linux platforms: FreeBSD 5.2.1; the Linux 2.4.22 kernel; Solaris 9; and Darwin 7.4.0, the FreeBSD/Mach hybrid underlying Apple's Mac OS X 10.3.

As in the first edition, you'll learn through example, including more than 10,000 lines of downloadable, ANSI C source code. More than 400 system calls and functions are demonstrated with concise, complete programs that clearly illustrate their usage, arguments, and return values. To tie together what you've learned, the book presents several chapter-length case studies, each fully updated for contemporary environments.

Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment has helped a generation of programmers write code with exceptional power, performance, and reliability. Now updated for today's UNIX/Linux systems, this second edition will be even more indispensable.

From the Back Cover

"This is the definitive reference book for any serious or professional UNIX systems programmer. Rago has updated and extended the original Stevens classic while keeping true to the original."

—Andrew Josey, Director, Certification, The Open Group, and Chair of the POSIX 1003.1 Working Group

The same trusted content from the Second Edition, now in paperback!

See all Product Description

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excelent book 16 Mar 2012

By Tom�s

Format:Hardcover

this book really worth the money. it's a must read book for everyone interested in system programming. So obviously I'm very happy with the quality of this item.

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Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors? 3 Nov 2006

By bernie VINE™ VOICE

This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.

The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":

The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.

You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.

It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.

The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.

As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Ramble on 23 Mar 2010

By Mr. I. R. Turner

Format:Paperback

While I did find this book useful and informative I do think that it could do with some judicious editing to remove the unnecessary tendency to wander off into historical reminisciences (pdp-11s and graphics terminals for instance) and complete irrelevancies (half a page talking about the different versions of awk that isn't relevant to this book and only appeared in an example of interpreterlists in execs).
If it were run through a compiler then a number of errors would be thrown up in relation to references to undeclared functions caused by forward referencing to functions described in later sections or chapters without indicating this which may confuse the reader.