Does it *have* to be the C library? [LWN.net]

Does it have to be the C library?

Posted Nov 30, 2010 22:04 UTC (Tue) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266)
Parent article: The kernel and the C library as a single project

Does it really have to be the C library? If I create a cool new syscall coolnewsyscall(), why not also distribute a libcoolnewsyscall? There is no reason why libc should be the only library allowed to use syscalls, and even libc itself is split in several libraries (libc, libm, libpthread, libdl, librt...).

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Does it have to be the C library?

Posted Nov 30, 2010 22:20 UTC (Tue) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link] (2 responses)

Because sometimes, even often, coolnewsyscall() is really just a function that enables a better, faster, or more flexible implementation of boringlibcfunction().

Does it have to be the C library?

Posted Dec 1, 2010 14:14 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

Isn't LD_PRELOAD=liblinux.so able to sneak new code into glibc and solve this problem?

Does it have to be the C library?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:42 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

No. Internal glibc->glibc calls do not go via the PLT and are not subject to interposition, thus LD_PRELOAD has no effect on them. (This is a big speed boost.)