Does the implementation of system call matter for the programmer?

[Eus]

Hi Ho!

"To a programmer, a system call looks like any other call to a library procedure. Is it important that a programmer know which library procedures result in system calls? Under what circumstances and why?"

I think it is important for a programmer to know which library procedures result in system calls for the following reasons:

1. when the programmer would like to port the library procedures to another platform, he must be aware whether the platform to which the programmer is going to port the procedures has the equivalent system calls that are needed or not. If not, the programmer must determine what library procedures he should hack so that the programmer can port the procedures successfully.

2. ?

Maybe you have other ideas?

Thank you.

Regards,
Eus

 

[fonik]

One reason is that system calls are really, really slow. Just like you wouldn't want to cache data on the hard drive, you would want to avoid functions with system calls for operations that require speed.