Thread: question about OS??

  1. #1
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    question about OS??

    Hello, I am kind of new to programming, and one of my courses requires that I study operating systems hence I have started reading up on it on my own...I am very confused on what system calls are?? I have looked it up in several books, which give a very detailed definition, and I couldn not find any internet sites that had a general overview of system calls, but I would really appreciate if someone could give a brief description of what a system call is??? thanks in advance

  2. #2
    Still A Registered User DISGUISED's Avatar
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    System calls are used by applications to make requests for resources from the operating system. In most cases the resources being hardware or access to memory.

  3. #3
    Seven years? civix's Avatar
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    Jul 2002
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    DISGUISED is absolutely right. here is an example of a few system calls.

    Code:
    system("PAUSE");
    system("DIR");
    system("cd\\");
    
    all require 
    #inlude <stdlib.h>
    .

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