Re: [PLUG] [plug-announce] December 5th, 2007: "What's a file?" presented by Mark Jason Dominus

["Jonathan Bringhurst" <fintler@gmail.com>]

I just wanted to thank Mark for a great presentation. It definitely
filled in a few things I didn't know there. As for the use of O_SYNC
to prevent the kernel from buffering data to reduce context switches,
I just wanted to mention that it's only for writing, I dunno why I was
thinking it was for read()s there. It's only used in obscure cases
anyway.

Another random thing is the catching of interrupts when doing a system
call, most notably EINTR. This is especially important when you're
writing code to be used in anything remotely important. Basically if
the return from the syscall is < 0 you need to check errno and handle
it. It seems like this might be a bit beyond the scope of the talk tho
:)

-Jon

/time to get some sleep....

On Dec 1, 2007 11:21 AM, Elizabeth Bevilacqua <lyz@princessleia.com> wrote:
>  ._____. .__________________________________________________________________.
>  | ._. | | .______________________________________________________________. |
>  | |_| |_|_|___.                                                   _____  | |
>  |___| |_____. |   The Philadelphia Area Linux Users Group        | ._. | | |
>  .___|_|_| |_| |   (PLUG) cordially invites you to our next   .___| |_|_|_| |
>  | ._____| |___|    meeting, Wednesday, December 5th, 2007    | ._| |_______|
>  | | | |_| |         at The University of the Sciences in     | |_|_|_| |___.
>  | | |_____|              Philadelphia, Pennsylvania          |_______| |_. |
>  | |______________________________________________________________| | | |_| |
>  |__________________________________________________________________| |_____|
>
>   The title of this month's meeting is "What's a file?" and is being
>   presented by Mark Jason Dominus.
>
>   MJD explains: "In this talk, I'll explain the fundamentals of how files
>   work under Linux.  I'll show how files can have multiple names, and what
>   the difference is between a hard link and a symbolic link.  I'll explain
>   the mystery column in the output of "ls -l" and why you can delete a file
>   that you don't own."
>
>   Mark Jason Dominus is the author of "Higher-Order Perl: Transforming
>   Programs with Programs". Our regular December speaker, he has given
>   several excellent talks in the past, including "History of Classic Unix
>   Security Holes" and "Internals of the qmail mail system". You don't want
>   to miss this!
>
>   The meeting will take place from 7-9pm at:
>
>           University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP)
>           Griffith Hall C
>           600 South 43rd Street
>           Philadelphia, PA 19104-4495
>
>   USP is located in University City.  Driving directions are
>   available at <http://www.phillylinux.org/locations/usp.html>, or
>   <http://www.usip.edu/directions/>, both of which have an aerial
>   view of the campus buildings.  USP is also easily accessible by
>   public transportation.
>
>   There will be an open Question & Answer session at 7PM, prior to
>   the main presentation at 8PM.  This is an open meeting; all are
>   welcome, and encouraged to attend.
>
>   Usually, a number of members get together after the meeting at a
>   nearby restaurant for food and perhaps a beer or two.  Come join
>   the camaraderie!
> _______________________________________________
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> ___________________________________________________________________________
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