NAME
syscall —
indirect system call
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/syscall.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
syscall(int
number, ...);
DESCRIPTION
syscall()
performs the system call whose assembly language interface has the specified
number with the specified arguments. Symbolic
constants for system calls can be found in the header file
<sys/syscall.h>.
RETURN VALUES
The return values are defined by the system call being invoked. In general, for system calls returning int, a 0 return value indicates success. A -1 return value indicates an error, and an error code is stored in errno.
HISTORY
The predecessor of these functions, the former
indir() system call, first appeared in
Version 4 AT&T UNIX. The
syscall() function first appeared in
3BSD.