8. Unix Specific Services

The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to features that are unique to the Unix operating system, or in some cases to some or many variants of it. Here's an overview:

posix The most common \POSIX system calls (normally used via module \moduleos).
pwd The password database (\functiongetpwnam() and friends).
grp The group database (\functiongetgrnam() and friends).
crypt The \cfunctioncrypt() function used to check \UNIX passwords.
dbm The standard ``database'' interface, based on ndbm.
gdbm GNU's reinterpretation of dbm.
termios \POSIX style tty control.
TERMIOS Symbolic constants required to use the \moduletermios module.
fcntl The \functionfcntl() and \functionioctl() system calls.
posixfile A file-like object with support for locking.
resource An interface to provide resource usage information on the current process.
syslog An interface to the \UNIX syslog library routines.
stat Utilities for interpreting the results of \functionos.stat(), \functionos.lstat() and \functionos.fstat().
popen2 Subprocesses with accessible standard I/O streams.
commands Wrapper functions for \functionos.popen().


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