Re: howto make system calls (newbie question)

[Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <9d8ute$8tt9@news.kvaerner.com>, "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> writes:
> 
> Larry Kilgallen
>>Console I/O - secure operating systems are likely to prevent a program
>> run by an ordinary user from accessing the console, to prevent
>> password grabbing attacks against the operator.
> 
> Try again. console I/O means that there are no GUI.

No, absent a specific explanation to the contrary, or specification
of some particular operating system, console I/O should mean I/O to
the console.  On the machines I use, ordinary unprivileged users are
_not_ allowed to write to the console (if they were, their output would
get intermixed).

>>Turbo Poascal style strings - please describe.  Given Ada String,
>>Bounded String and Unbounded Strings, I am hard-pressed to thing
>>of capabilities that are missing.
> 
> This has been discussed before in this newsgroup.

If you remember that, but don't remember the answer, don't bother
commenting on the question.

>>Set File Protection - this certainly cannot be made uniform across
>>operating systems. VMS has SOGW, Unix (at least some) have one fewer.
>>A major way operating systems distinguish themselves is by differences
>>in their ACLs.
> 
> Of course it can. It is just a bit of work and som common sense. The posix
> (or was it C) standard have some suggestions about how to do it.

And do they cover protected subsystem ACEs, which I need for VMS ?
I am sure that MVS, OS/400 and other operating systems have their
own unique ACE types, to say nothing of different processing rules.
As I said, it cannot be made universal across operating systems.

>>Standard datatypes for system calls - And what good will a VMS-style
>>descriptor do me on a Unix system ?
> 
> Beats me. Why would you want that?

The proposal was to implement standard datatypes for system calls.
A descriptor is the most common datatype for VMS system calls.  I
am sure that other operating systems have their own datatypes that
also do not have universal applicability.

If your intention is to provide a binding only to Posix-standard
interfaces, then say so, but I thought that already existed for Ada.