About This Manual

This manual describes the programming environment of the Tru64^TM UNIX operating system, with an emphasis on the C programming language. The availability of other programming languages on any system is determined by the choices made at the time the system was configured or modified.

Audience

This manual addresses all programmers who use the Tru64 UNIX operating system to create or maintain programs in any supported language.

New and Changed Features

In addition to many corrections and revisions throughout this manual, the following major changes and additions have been made for the Version 5.1 release of Tru64 UNIX:

Chapter 2 -- Section 2.9, Inline Assembly Code (ASMs), has been added.

Chapter 3 -- Three new sections, for pragma assert, pragma extern_model, and pragma optimize have been added. The section on pragma use_linkage has been modified: you can now associate a typedef name with a linkage.

Chapter 8 -- Section 8.4, Automatic and Profile-Directed Optimization, has moved to Section 10.1, which covers all automatic optimization techniques.

Chapter 9 -- Documentation on the new -gap and -gpa options has been added.

Chapter 10 -- Section 10.1 has been revised to centralize all automatic optimization techniques. It now includes use of the new spike tool and information that was formerly in Chapter 8 about automatic and profile-directed optimization. Because spike is intended to replace the cc command's -om option and the cord utility, these older tools are now described in the new Appendix F.

Chapter 14 -- A new section, Section 14.7.8 Choosing a Connection Policy, has been added. Example 14-3 has been modified. Example 14-4 has been replaced. Section 14.5.1.1 and Section 14.5.1.1.1 have been completely revised. A detailed description of date and time variables has been added to Section 14.8.1.

Appendix F -- This new appendix contains information that was formerly in Chapter 8 and Chapter 10 about using the cc command's -om option and the cord utility. The spike tool, described in Section 10.1.3, is replacing them.

Organization

This manual contains 14 chapters and 6 appendixes.

Chapter 1	Describes the phases of program development and which programming tools to use during those phases.
Chapter 2	Describes the tools that make up the compiler system and how to use them. Topics covered include compiler commands, preprocessors, compilation options, multilanguage programs, and the archiver.
Chapter 3	Describes the implementation-specific pragmas that the C compiler supports.
Chapter 4	Describes the use, creation, and maintenance of shared libraries and discusses how symbols are resolved.
Chapter 5	Describes how to use the `dbx` debugger. It includes information about the `dbx` commands, working with the monitor, setting breakpoints, and debugging machine code.
Chapter 6	Describes how to use the `lint` command to produce clean code.
Chapter 7	Describes how to use the Third Degree tool to perform memory access checks and leak detection on an application program.
Chapter 8	Describes how to use various tools and techniques to profile your code, enabling you to find which portions of code are consuming the most execution time. It also describes how to feed profiling data back to the C compiler to provide some automatic optimization of the code.
Chapter 9	Describes how to use prepackaged Atom tools to instrument an application program for various purposes, such as to obtain profiling data or to perform cache-use analysis. It also describes how you can design and create custom Atom tools.
Chapter 10	Describes how to optimize your code using the optimizer and the `spike` postlink optimizer.
Chapter 11	Describes how to use the features of the C compiler to write a structured exception handler or a termination handler.
Chapter 12	Describes how to develop multithreaded programs.
Chapter 13	Describes some programming considerations associated with using the OpenMP parallel-processing interface.
Chapter 14	Describes how to use the Event Manager utility to post and receive event notifications.
Appendix A	Describes how to use 32-bit pointers on a Tru64 UNIX system.
Appendix B	Describes how to achieve source code compatibility for C language programs in the System V habitat.
Appendix C	Describes how to write dynamically configurable kernel subsystems.
Appendix D	Describes the old-style parallel processing pragmas implemented before OpenMP.
Appendix E	Describes the routines that handle conversions between the old-style and new-style names of device special files.
Appendix F	Describes how to optimize a program with the `cc` command's -om and -cord options.

Related Documents

In addition to this manual, the following manuals contain information pertaining to program development:

Programming: General

Calling Standard for Alpha Systems

Assembly Language Programmer's Guide

Programming Support Tools

Network Programmer's Guide

Compaq Portable Mathematics Library

Writing Software for the International Market

Kernel Debugging

Ladebug Debugger Manual

Writing Kernel Modules

Alpha Architecture Reference Manual, 2nd Edition (Butterworth-Hinemann Press, ISBN:1-55558-145-5)

Programming: Realtime

Guide to Realtime Programming

Programming: Streams

Programmer's Guide: STREAMS

Programming: Multithreaded Applications

Guide to the POSIX Threads Library

OpenMP C and C++ Application Programming Interface specification, available on the Internet from http://www.openmp.org/specs/.

General User Information

Icons on Tru64 UNIX Printed Manuals

The printed version of the Tru64 UNIX documentation uses letter icons on the spines of the manuals to help specific audiences quickly find the manuals that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from Compaq.) The following list describes this convention:

G	Manuals for general users
S	Manuals for system and network administrators
P	Manuals for programmers
R	Manuals for reference page users

Some manuals in the documentation help meet the needs of several audiences. For example, the information in some system manuals is also used by programmers. Keep this in mind when searching for information on specific topics.

The Documentation Overview provides information on all of the manuals in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set.

Reader's Comments

Compaq welcomes any comments and suggestions you have on this and other Tru64 UNIX manuals.

You can send your comments in the following ways:

Fax: 603-884-0120 Attn: UBPG Publications, ZKO3-3/Y32

Internet electronic mail: readers_comment@zk3.dec.com
A Reader's Comment form is located on your system in the following location:
/usr/doc/readers_comment.txt

Please include the following information along with your comments:

The full title of the manual and the order number. (The order number appears on the title page of printed and PDF versions of a manual.)

The section numbers and page numbers of the information on which you are commenting.

The version of Tru64 UNIX that you are using.

If known, the type of processor that is running the Tru64 UNIX software.

The Tru64 UNIX Publications group cannot respond to system problems or technical support inquiries. Please address technical questions to your local system vendor or to the appropriate Compaq technical support office. Information provided with the software media explains how to send problem reports to Compaq.

Conventions

% $: A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt. A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne, Korn, and POSIX shells.
#: A number sign represents the superuser prompt.
% cat: Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.
file: Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.
[ | ] { | }: In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.
colored text: In syntax definitions, literal elements are colored green. Variable values, placeholders, and function argument names are colored red. No special colored text is used outside of syntax descriptions.
. . .: In syntax definitions, a horizontal ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can be repeated one or more times.
cat(1): A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.
[Return]: In an example, a key name enclosed in a box indicates that you press that key.
[Ctrl/x]: This symbol indicates that you hold down the first named key while pressing the key or mouse button that follows the slash. In examples, this key combination is enclosed in a box (for example, [Ctrl/C] ).