Comment by chad1n
2 years ago
You can't since man pages present the libc implementation, that's more useful if you work with syscalls that use structures since it shows you what to search for in libc to copy it in other language.
2 years ago
You can't since man pages present the libc implementation, that's more useful if you work with syscalls that use structures since it shows you what to search for in libc to copy it in other language.
Always wondered why there's non-Linux kernel information in the Linux man pages.
I mentioned this to Greg Kroah-Hartman when he did his second AMA on reddit, hoping he would comment on it.
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/fx5e4v/im_greg_kroah...
> So we rely on different libc projects to provide this, and work with them when needed.
> This ends up being more flexible as there are different needs from a libc, and for us to "pick one" wouldn't always be fair.
I think putting libc information in the Linux man page is effectively "picking one". The init section of the manual also contains systemd information, giving the impression it's the "official" init. I expected to read about the ways the Linux kernel treats PID 1 specially but got the systemd manual instead.
> man pages present the libc implementation
No, the section 3 man pages for "syscalls" are the libc wrapper functions. But section 2 is the syscalls themselves, and includes man pages for syscalls that don't have wrapper functions.
I don't think those man pages include the numbers though, since those numbers are architecture dependent.
Not really. Even though section 2 should be for "syscalls", it is really only for libc syscall wrappers. Very few pages in the section 2 document the raw syscalls, and those that do say it specifically at the beginning. OTOH, in section 3 you won't find any syscall at all (wrapper or not).