Book Image

C++ System Programming Cookbook

By : Onorato Vaticone
Book Image

C++ System Programming Cookbook

By: Onorato Vaticone

Overview of this book

C++ is the preferred language for system programming due to its efficient low-level computation, data abstraction, and object-oriented features. System programming is about designing and writing computer programs that interact closely with the underlying operating system and allow computer hardware to interface with the programmer and the user. The C++ System Programming Cookbook will serve as a reference for developers who want to have ready-to-use solutions for the essential aspects of system programming using the latest C++ standards wherever possible. This C++ book starts out by giving you an overview of system programming and refreshing your C++ knowledge. Moving ahead, you will learn how to deal with threads and processes, before going on to discover recipes for how to manage memory. The concluding chapters will then help you understand how processes communicate and how to interact with the console (console I/O). Finally, you will learn how to deal with time interfaces, signals, and CPU scheduling. By the end of the book, you will become adept at developing robust systems applications using C++.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Learning the Linux timing

Before C++11, the Standard Library did not contain any direct time-management support, so system developers had to use external sources. By external, we mean either an external library (for example, Boost (https://www.boost.org/)) or OS-specific APIs. We believe it's necessary that a system developer understands the concept of time in terms of Linux. This recipe will help you master concepts such as clock, time point, and duration by using the POSIX standard.

How to do it...

In this recipe, we'll write a program so that we can learn about the concepts of clock, time point, and duration in terms of Linux. Let's get started:

  1. In a shell, create a new file named...