Re: howto make system calls (newbie question)

["Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com>]

Larry Kilgallen wrote
>I certainly agree, but I was responding to a thread with entries
>espousing codification of all "standard datatypes" that might be
>used in system calls.  I consider that unworkable, because what
>constitutes a "standard datatype" varies so much between various
>operating systems.   Basically, I do not feel there is progress
>to be made in that direction.


As long as that bit is system specific, it will work as intended. VMSers do
not have this problem as most if not all of the stuff needed to interact
with the system is already present. For Unix, windows nt, etc this is not
the case.

If a program uses sockets which are common to quite a lot of operating
systems, it will work on all if it uses the definitions from a platform
specific source. Granted that sockets and related routines are not
neccessarily a system resource in a given operating system, but they are
pervasive enough to be included if they are supported on the platform.


Greetings,