syscall man page on Oracle

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   33470 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Oracle logo
[printable version]

SYSCALL(2)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		    SYSCALL(2)

NAME
       syscall - indirect system call

SYNOPSIS
       #define _GNU_SOURCE	   /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <sys/syscall.h>	  /* For SYS_xxx definitions */

       int syscall(int number, ...);

DESCRIPTION
       syscall()  is  a	 small	library	 function that invokes the system call
       whose assembly language interface has the  specified  number  with  the
       specified  arguments.  Employing syscall() is useful, for example, when
       invoking a system call that has no wrapper function in the C library.

       syscall() saves CPU registers before making the system  call,  restores
       the  registers  upon  return from the system call, and stores any error
       code returned by the system call in errno(3) if an error occurs.

       Symbolic constants for system call numbers can be found in  the	header
       file <sys/syscall.h>.

RETURN VALUE
       The  return value is defined by the system call being invoked.  In gen‐
       eral, a 0 return value indicates success.  A -1 return value  indicates
       an error, and an error code is stored in errno.

NOTES
       syscall() first appeared in 4BSD.

   Architecture-specific requirements
       Each architecture ABI has its own requirements on how system call argu‐
       ments are passed to the kernel.	For system calls  that	have  a	 glibc
       wrapper (e.g., most system calls), glibc handles the details of copying
       arguments to the right registers in a manner suitable for the architec‐
       ture.   However, when using syscall() to make a system call, the caller
       might need to handle architecture-dependent details;  this  requirement
       is most commonly encountered on certain 32-bit architectures.

       For  example,  on  the  ARM  architecture Embedded ABI (EABI), a 64-bit
       value (e.g., long long) must be	aligned	 to  an	 even  register	 pair.
       Thus,  using  syscall()	instead	 of the wrapper provided by glibc, the
       readahead() system call would be invoked as follows on the  ARM	archi‐
       tecture with the EABI:

	   syscall(SYS_readahead, fd, 0,
		   (unsigned int) (offset >> 32),
		   (unsigned int) (offset & 0xFFFFFFFF),
		   count);

       Since  the  offset  argument is 64 bits, and the first argument (fd) is
       passed in r0, the caller must manually split and align the 64-bit value
       so  that it is passed in the r2/r3 register pair.  That means inserting
       a dummy value into r1 (the second argument of 0).

       Similar issues can occur on MIPS with the O32 ABI, on PowerPC with  the
       32-bit ABI, and on Xtensa.

       The   affected	system	 calls	are  fadvise64_64(2),  ftruncate64(2),
       posix_fadvise(2),      pread64(2),      pwrite64(2),	 readahead(2),
       sync_file_range(2), and truncate64(2).

   Architecture calling conventions
       Every architecture has its own way of invoking and passing arguments to
       the kernel.  The details for various architectures are  listed  in  the
       two tables below.

       The  first  table  lists	 the  instruction used to transition to kernel
       mode, (which might not be the fastest or best way to transition to  the
       kernel,	so  you might have to refer to the VDSO), the register used to
       indicate the system call number, and the register used  to  return  the
       system call result.

       arch/ABI	  instruction	       syscall #   retval Notes
       ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       arm/OABI	  swi NR	       -	   a1	  NR is syscall #
       arm/EABI	  swi 0x0	       r7	   r1
       blackfin	  excpt 0x0	       P0	   R0
       i386	  int $0x80	       eax	   eax
       ia64	  break 0x100000       r15	   r10/r8
       parisc	  ble 0x100(%sr2, %r0) r20	   r28
       s390	  svc 0		       r1	   r2	  NR may be passed directly with
       s390x	  svc 0		       r1	   r2	  "svc NR" if NR is less than 256
       sparc/32	  t 0x10	       g1	   o0
       sparc/64	  t 0x6d	       g1	   o0
       x86_64	  syscall	       rax	   rax

       The second table shows the registers used to pass the system call argu‐
       ments.

       arch/ABI	  arg1	 arg2	arg3   arg4   arg5   arg6   arg7
       ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       arm/OABI	  a1	 a2	a3     a4     v1     v2	    v3
       arm/EABI	  r1	 r2	r3     r4     r5     r6	    r7
       blackfin	  R0	 R1	R2     R3     R4     R5	    -
       i386	  ebx	 ecx	edx    esi    edi    ebp    -
       ia64	  r11	 r9	r10    r14    r15    r13    -
       parisc	  r26	 r25	r24    r23    r22    r21    -
       s390	  r2	 r3	r4     r5     r6     r7	    -
       s390x	  r2	 r3	r4     r5     r6     r7	    -
       sparc/32	  o0	 o1	o2     o3     o4     o5	    -
       sparc/64	  o0	 o1	o2     o3     o4     o5	    -
       x86_64	  rdi	 rsi	rdx    r10    r8     r9	    -

       Note that these tables don't cover the entire  calling  convention—some
       architectures  may  indiscriminately clobber other registers not listed
       here.

EXAMPLE
       #define _GNU_SOURCE
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <sys/syscall.h>
       #include <sys/types.h>

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
	   pid_t tid;

	   tid = syscall(SYS_gettid);
	   tid = syscall(SYS_tgkill, getpid(), tid);
       }

SEE ALSO
       _syscall(2), intro(2), syscalls(2)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.53 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux				  2013-06-21			    SYSCALL(2)
[top]

List of man pages available for Oracle

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net