GNU/Linux Application Programming [With CDROM]

by M. Tim Jones

Book Overview

The wide range of applications available in GNU/Linux includes not only pure applications, but also tools and utilities for the GNU/Linux environment. GNU/Linux Application Programming takes a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584505680
• ISBN13: 9781584505686
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Length: 667 Pages
• Weight: 3.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great reference if you program for the Linux platform

This book covers a wide breadth of what you need to get started with Linux programming. The writing is very good and readable. The examples though simple, are very clear and concise, and makes you understand at a fundamental level what elements of Linux you need to know. The ones I liked in particular were: - IPC (interprocess communication) - Linux process model, and pThreads - shell scripting, awk, sed - bison, flex - tools like GDB (debugger), gprof (performance), gcov (code coverage) - sockets programming Note that this book does not go very deep into these topics, but if you need a refresher on the basics, or you don't know a particular area of linux, this book is highly recommended. Most of the examples are in C, as expected, (being Linux) except for a very short example in Ruby with Sockets programing.

Gets you up and running with Linux programming

All the topics that one needs to read to come up to speed with Linux programming, development and maintenance, scripting and even tuning are covered in this book. The author starts with the basic architecture of the Linux operating system, and delves into the details of each part: scheduler, memory manager, virtual file system, network, ipc and init. The reader starts with an overview of what the Linux operating system looks like "under the hood", and is taken thru a series of sections that cover application development using each section of the Linux kernel. Overview application programming, performance analysis and debugging using various GNU tools such as the the GCC complier, make, gcov and gprof are given first and are used throughout the book by the author to further demonstrate the features and benefits of the available GNU tools. By now, the reader is presented with the necessary tools needed to create application, and is not time to delve into specific programming techniques and API's. The book starts with simple file handling API's and examples, and goes into more complicated topics such as: * Linux Pipes * Sockets programming * Multi-process development and the Linux process model * Multi-threaded development and the Linux threading model * Messages Queues * Synchronization and Semaphores * Shared memory programming Even though each of these topics are very complicated and an entire text could easily dedicated to it, the author with elegance covers each topic such that the reader could get an overview of what is at stake. Each topic is rather short, and very well written with examples and a step-by-step instruction of how to write simple programs. Each chapter is like a short and sweet introduction to the topic at hand. One of my favorite chapters is, "Synchronization with Semaphores," in which the author further illustrates the point using sequence diagrams of events, elaborated examples and tips on how-to's. The chances are that programming in a high-level language such as C is not enough, and one needs to compliment his/her application[s] with scripts and many other available Linux tools and commands. The last section of the book is dedicated to what some people might call odd-and-ends, but to me, they are as important as any other topics in this book. Bash, Sed, awk, flex and bison are some of the scripting languages that are covered. As with the previous sections of the text the author covers each topic using examples plus a step-by-step depiction of each example. If you are new to the Linux programming environment or you need a refresher text like I did, you will find this book very useful. Tim does a fantastic job covering a broad topic, and doing so with such ease and elegance. The examples are priceless, and the CD at the end of the book has complete source code to the examples given in the book.

Great introduction to Linux Application programming

Written for application developers, this book is a great source of information on working with the GNU/Linux architecture and process model. If you know something about programming but want to know how to use those skills in the GNU/Linux environment this is one of the best books available. The coverage is thorough and filled with coding examples to illustrate the concepts. To make your life easier it even has all the coding examples included on a CD in the back of the book. Areas examined include the GNU compiler, automake, shells, scripting, creating and using libraries, named pipes, semaphores, sockets, and shared memory. The book wraps up with a section on debugging and testing your application. GNU/Linux Application Programming is an excellent source of information for the new to intermediate GNU/Linux programmer and highly recommended.

In Between the Program and the Operating System

This book fits into an interesting and often neglected spot between the operating system (Linux) and the programming language (C). There are lots of books on both C and Linux. This one ties the two areas together. The C language is a general language with applications on many operating systems. Linux, of course is one operating system that can use C. Inbetween the two lie the areas of taking the raw language and turning the code into an application that can actually be of use to someone. Contained within the GNU/Linux system are many software packages to establish the programming environment. There's the compiler and operating system. But more than that are systems to optimize the resulting code, to combine the program you wrote with other standardized routines from the system. These other utility programs have names like gcov, gprof, automake and so on. To the newcommer to GNU/Linux, there is a bewildering array of names (that only kind of make sense) for programs that ease your development task. In addition there's discussion on various programming concepts such as the Linux file system, programming threads, piped, sockets and so on. Again, these are areas that are part of the standard GNU/Linux system but which are discussed here in ways to make them useful to the applications developer. This is a carefully positioned book that will be of great help to the beginning developer.