FreeBSD API documentation

SR_Ind · Oct 2, 2012

Is there a FreeBSD API documentation somewhere?

trasz@ · Oct 3, 2012

Yes. Please see manual pages in section 2 (syscalls) and 3 (library calls); they live in /usr/share/man/man2 and /usr/share/man/man3, respectively.

SR_Ind · Oct 3, 2012

Thanks. This is what I was looking for.

fender0107401 · Oct 3, 2012

SR_Ind said:
Thanks. This is what I was looking for.

Check APUE.

SR_Ind · Oct 4, 2012

The APUE tarball seems interesting. But I don't see some interesting parts. Sound API for example. Where do I find the API's for network interface?

@trasz@ - I took an overview of the man pages. It looked promising to begin with.

I guess I'm looking for something else.

Assume I want to know all the system calls to the sound sub-system. Is there a place that list all the functions and a mention of the related header file and link library names?

Flogo · Dec 1, 2012

Hi !

SR_Ind said:
The APUE tarball seems interesting. But I don't see some interesting parts. Sound API for example. Where do I find the API's for network interface?
[...]
Assume I want to know all the system calls to the sound sub-system. Is there a place that list all the functions and a mention of the related header file and link library names?

SR_Ind, I'm also interested to learn how to use the API. Here is what I found:

- A good example to get information on network interface: http://www.lemoda.net/freebsd/net-interfaces/index.html

- About the sound API, give a look to the man sound(4) in the section "Runtime Configuration" you got the sysctl variables, now you can check here: man sysctl(3)

I hope it helps you !

Flogo

trasz@ · Dec 1, 2012

The low level API for sound used in FreeBSD is called OSS; you can find programing manual e.g. here: http://www.4front-tech.com/pguide/index.html. You might want to use some higher-level API instead, such as PulseAudio or JACK.

TonyMeteo · Jan 2, 2017

trasz@ said:
Yes. Please see manual pages in section 2 (syscalls) and 3 (library calls); they live in /usr/share/man/man2 and /usr/share/man/man3, respectively.

I t

trasz@ said:
Yes. Please see manual pages in section 2 (syscalls) and 3 (library calls); they live in /usr/share/man/man2 and /usr/share/man/man3, respectively.

Can you explain how to do that? i can't seem to find anything about syscalls with 'man syscall' which merely describe the function ,plus library calls manual live in /usr/share/man/man3 ? how to read it? there are only there. Is there a documentation (like the ones in 'en-freebsd-doc' package ?
thks

fnoyanisi · Jan 2, 2017

SR_Ind said:
Is there a FreeBSD API documentation somewhere?

SR_Ind, you may find Developers' Handook useful. Also, you can find a list of available system calls in syscall.h .

Code:

less /usr/include/sys/syscall.h

SR_Ind said:
Where do I find the API's for network interface?

SR_Ind, check netintro(4) for the implementation of network layer. Also, you may want to have a bit of ifconfig(8) source code reading to see some code examples. You will see that rather than having a high level API, many things are implemented as ioctl(2) calls to NIC driver.

TonyMeteo said:
Can you explain how to do that? i can't seem to find anything about syscalls with 'man syscall' which merely describe the function

TonyMeteo , this link explains what a syscall is. Also, intro(2) manual page is a good starting point before diving into details.

TonyMeteo said:
plus library calls manual live in /usr/share/man/man3 ? how to read it? there are only there

I am sure you know what man(1) and apropos(1) commands are?

TonyMeteo said:
Is there a documentation (like the ones in 'en-freebsd-doc' package ?

See my reply to SR_Ind above.