Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: syscall(2)
Keywords: "damage level"
Message-ID: <1299@virtech.UUCP>
Date: 21 Oct 89 00:11:16 GMT
References: <2479@munnari.oz.au>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc
Lines: 27

In article <2479@munnari.oz.au>, ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe) writes:
> Q1:  Did syscall() survive from V6 into System V, or is it as big a
>      portability problem as it looks?

This kind of thing is very vendor specific.  The easiest way to find out
what mechanism is used on your system is to disassemble one of the 
system call routines in your C library.  You could then implement your 
own syscall that performs the same operations as used in the C library.

> Q2:  Are systems which advertise themselves as "4.3BSD" likely to use the
>      same syscall numbers for things which are part of 4.3BSD?  (It was
>      not a surprise to me that the ELXSI does not support SYS_vpixsys.)

If it is a "pure" 4.3BSD, then yes, but for those vendors that had ported
4.2BSD and added some of thier own system calls (maybe to try to meet SVID),
this will probably be a problem since they may have used some of the slots
used by newer 4.3 system calls and dont want to move thier existing 
system calls becuase it will mean non-binary compatability.

So in other words, its possible, maybe probable, but I wouldn't count
on it.

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| Conor P. Cahill     uunet!virtech!cpcahil      	703-430-9247	!
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