ATAD #18 – Unix Standardization

Software is probably the fastest thing that undergoes change, and its standardization is an important method for both software development and maintenance.

Since its development in 1969, Unix has undergone a lot of changes and has evolved over the years. Here are a few of the efforts towards standardizing Unix.

Probably the first step was in 1980 when BSD 4.1 was developed which included vi, job control and improvements in signals. Subsequently came AT&Ts draft standards which also included TCP/IP networking with BSD4.2 in 1983.

In 1985, AT&T released the System V Interface Definition (SVID) whose description included system calls, C libraries, available programs and devices.

In 1985 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) committee developed a series of standards generally known as POSIX. These went beyond describing merely systems calls and C library facilities; they specified detailed semantics of a shell and a minimum command set, and also detailed bindings for various non-C programming languages. The first release in 1990 was followed by a second edition in 1996.

Key POSIX standards include the following:

• 1003.1 (released 1990): Library procedures. Described the C system call API, much like Version 7 except for signals and the terminal-control interface.
• 1003.2 (released 1992): Standard shell and utilities. Shell semantics strongly resemble those of the System V Bourne shell.
• 1003.4 (released 1993): Real-time Unix. Binary semaphores, process memory locking, memory-mapped files, shared memory, priority scheduling, real-time signals, clocks and timers, IPC message passing, synchronized I/O, asynchronous I/O, real-time files.

And then in 2001, the X/Open (The Open Group) framed the Single UNIX Specification which specified four important things.

• Base Definitions – a list of definitions and conventions used in the specifications and a list of C header files which must be provided by compliant systems
• Shell and Utilities – a list of utilities and a description of the shell, sh
• System Interfaces – a list of available C system calls which must be provided
• Rationale – the explanation behind the standard

Further Reading: Unix Standards and Specs, Unix Standards

__tipped__

Advertisement