The kernel and the C library as a single project [LWN.net]

The kernel and the C library as a single project

Posted Nov 30, 2010 23:15 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (guest, #56877)
In reply to: The kernel and the C library as a single project by nteon
Parent article: The kernel and the C library as a single project

Sure, and you could use the lib until it gets integrated into libc.

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The kernel and the C library as a single project

Posted Dec 1, 2010 16:42 UTC (Wed) by busterb (subscriber, #560) [Link]

There are libraries that do this today. A couple of examples:

libpcap abstracts the OS-specific calls to setup and capture from a raw socket. It includes several variations on a theme for Linux specifically, ranging from select/read semantics to mapping a shared-memory ring buffer.

libevent abstracts OS-specific replacement syscalls for select/poll, using whatever is fastest for a particular OS.

libaio is similar, but for asynchronous IO

These libraries all present a stable ABI for apps to use, similar to libc. Having a library like this seems like the perfect incubator for new syscalls as well.