13.1 Definitions for OS interface

This is the complete set of system definitions (primarily subroutines) required; the examples shown implement the minimal functionality required to allow libc to link, and fail gracefully where OS services are not available.

Graceful failure is permitted by returning an error code. A minor complication arises here: the C library must be compatible with development environments that supply fully functional versions of these subroutines. Such environments usually return error codes in a global errno. However, the Red Hat newlib C library provides a macro definition for errno in the header file errno.h, as part of its support for reentrant routines (see Reentrancy).

The bridge between these two interpretations of errno is straightforward: the C library routines with OS interface calls capture the errno values returned globally, and record them in the appropriate field of the reentrancy structure (so that you can query them using the errno macro from errno.h).

This mechanism becomes visible when you write stub routines for OS interfaces. You must include errno.h, then disable the macro, like this:

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;

The examples in this chapter include this treatment of errno.

_exit

Exit a program without cleaning up files. If your system doesn’t provide this, it is best to avoid linking with subroutines that require it (exit, system).

close

Close a file. Minimal implementation:

int close(int file) {
  return -1;
}

environ

A pointer to a list of environment variables and their values. For a minimal environment, this empty list is adequate:

char *__env[1] = { 0 };
char **environ = __env;

execve

Transfer control to a new process. Minimal implementation (for a system without processes):

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int execve(char *name, char **argv, char **env) {
  errno = ENOMEM;
  return -1;
}

fork

Create a new process. Minimal implementation (for a system without processes):

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int fork(void) {
  errno = EAGAIN;
  return -1;
}

fstat

Status of an open file. For consistency with other minimal implementations in these examples, all files are regarded as character special devices. The sys/stat.h header file required is distributed in the include subdirectory for this C library.

#include <sys/stat.h>
int fstat(int file, struct stat *st) {
  st->st_mode = S_IFCHR;
  return 0;
}

getpid

Process-ID; this is sometimes used to generate strings unlikely to conflict with other processes. Minimal implementation, for a system without processes:

int getpid(void) {
  return 1;
}

isatty

Query whether output stream is a terminal. For consistency with the other minimal implementations, which only support output to stdout, this minimal implementation is suggested:

int isatty(int file) {
  return 1;
}

kill

Send a signal. Minimal implementation:

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int kill(int pid, int sig) {
  errno = EINVAL;
  return -1;
}

link

Establish a new name for an existing file. Minimal implementation:

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int link(char *old, char *new) {
  errno = EMLINK;
  return -1;
}

lseek

Set position in a file. Minimal implementation:

int lseek(int file, int ptr, int dir) {
  return 0;
}

open

Open a file. Minimal implementation:

int open(const char *name, int flags, int mode) {
  return -1;
}

read

Read from a file. Minimal implementation:

int read(int file, char *ptr, int len) {
  return 0;
}

sbrk

Increase program data space. As malloc and related functions depend on this, it is useful to have a working implementation. The following suffices for a standalone system; it exploits the symbol _end automatically defined by the GNU linker.

caddr_t sbrk(int incr) {
  extern char _end;		/* Defined by the linker */
  static char *heap_end;
  char *prev_heap_end;
 
  if (heap_end == 0) {
    heap_end = &_end;
  }
  prev_heap_end = heap_end;
  if (heap_end + incr > stack_ptr) {
    write (1, "Heap and stack collision\n", 25);
    abort ();
  }

  heap_end += incr;
  return (caddr_t) prev_heap_end;
}

stat

Status of a file (by name). Minimal implementation:

int stat(char *file, struct stat *st) {
  st->st_mode = S_IFCHR;
  return 0;
}

times

Timing information for current process. Minimal implementation:

int times(struct tms *buf) {
  return -1;
}

unlink

Remove a file’s directory entry. Minimal implementation:

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int unlink(char *name) {
  errno = ENOENT;
  return -1; 
}

wait

Wait for a child process. Minimal implementation:

#include <errno.h>
#undef errno
extern int errno;
int wait(int *status) {
  errno = ECHILD;
  return -1;
}

write

Write to a file. libc subroutines will use this system routine for output to all files, including stdout—so if you need to generate any output, for example to a serial port for debugging, you should make your minimal write capable of doing this. The following minimal implementation is an incomplete example; it relies on a outbyte subroutine (not shown; typically, you must write this in assembler from examples provided by your hardware manufacturer) to actually perform the output.

int write(int file, char *ptr, int len) {
  int todo;

  for (todo = 0; todo < len; todo++) {
    outbyte (*ptr++);
  }
  return len;
}