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Darwin Kernel Programming

Posted by pudge on from the documentation-gooooood dept.

ZigMonty writes "Apple has updated their Kernel Programming docs (May 1st). They are a lot more substantial now (read: they say something other than 'don't')."

2 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. humor in the manaul by cremes · · Score: 3, Funny
    Under the VFS section, there's a subsection entitled "A Politically Correct Example."
    A Politically Correct Example

    The Politically Correct File System is an example of a VFS stack. In this example, all calls are ignored (passed to the underlying layer) except for those that create, read, or write a file (or folder).

    Upon receiving a request to create a file or folder, the Politically Correct (PC) stack intercepts the call before it can be executed by the underlying file system. The PC version of the create call checks the requested filename against a table of names. If the name is deemed politically incorrect, for example if the user chooses to name a file "vulgarity", the PC create call chooses a more pleasing name, for example, "politeness". The new name is passed to the create routine of the underlying file system.

    Similarly, when a user opens a file to read or write it, such as with a text editor, the PC read and write routines first examine the data buffer, possibly substituting preferred words and phrases for their undesirable counterparts. After the substitutions are made, the buffer is handed to the underlying routine, which displays the data or writes it to disk.

    Thus, if a user attempted to save a file containing a sentence such as this:

    The beleaguered computer company's woes continue, despite rising stock prices.

    the PC write routine might intercept and filter this sentence to a more desirable version:

    The aspiring computer company's joys continue, due to rising stock prices.

    cr
  2. Many documentation updates... by h0tblack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...have appeared in the build up to the start of the WWDC (today).
    There's also an updated "UNIX Porting Guide"
    http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx /Darwin/ index.html

    All of the latest updates can be found here:
    http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/ whatsne w.html

    One of the older bits of documentation I came across recently was that on Assembly under OS X, including details for the i386 architecture.
    http://developer.apple.com/techpubs /macosx/Develop erTools/Assembler/AssemblerTOC.html