Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of POSIX_Definitions

Timestamp:

Feb 23, 2008, 4:18:58 AM (16 years ago)

Author:

trac

Comment:

--

POSIX_Definitions

@@ +1 @@
+KEEP IN SYNC WITH lib/posix.h
+
+this header makes available commonly used POSIX (Portable Operating System
+Interface) definitions, e.g. thread, file I/O and socket APIs.
+on Linux and OS X we just include the requisite headers; Win32 doesn't really
+support POSIX (+), so we have to implement everything ourselves.
+
+
+rationale: this is preferable to a wrapper for several reasons:
+ * less code (implementation is only needed on Win32)
+ * no lock-in (the abstraction may prevent not-designed-for operations that the POSIX interface would have allowed)
+ * familiarity (many coders already know POSIX)
+
+
+if a useful definition is missing, feel free to add it!
+
+
+implementation reference is the [http://www.unix.org/online.html "Single Unix Specification v3"] - it's similar to the POSIX standard (superset?) and freely available.
+
+
+
++ Win32 does have a POSIX subsystem (mandated by a government contract),
+but it is crippled. only apps with the PE header 'subsystem' field set to
+"POSIX" can use the appendant DLL, and then they can't call the regular
+Windows APIs. this is obviously unacceptable - GDI is needed to set up OpenGL.
+
+we therefore need to emulate POSIX functions using the Win32 API.
+fortunately, many POSIX functions are already implemented in the VC CRT and
+need only be renamed (e.g. _open, _stat).