COP 4604 -- Unix System Programming
Sequence #6211, Term: Spring 2002
Last modified: 23 April 2002 by R.Levow

New and Updated Items
    Added hints for course project. Entries for -v and $VAR substitution (posted 4/23)
    Project Presentation Schedule (updated 4/22)
    Final Exam Review (posted 4/21)
    On Course Project added notes on command checking and variable substitution (posted 4/20)
    Corrected final exam date to April 27 (posted 4/3)

Professor: Roy B. Levow (http://www.cse.fau.edu/~roy)

Class Time: Saturday 9:00 - 11:50 am, LA-340 (Davie)

Textbook: Beginning Linux Programming , Second Edition, by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, Wrox Press, 1999, ISBN 1861002971. Code from the book is here .

Recommended Resources:

A complete C language reference, including standard library documentation. This may be either in the form of a text or electronic as the documentation for a C/C++ compiler
Red Hat or other flavor of Linux installed on personal PC

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, Richard Stevens , Addison-Wesley, 1993
UNIX System Programming, Keith Haviland, Dina Gray and Ben Salama, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley, 1999.
The Design of the UNIX operating System, Maurice Bach, Prentice Hall, 1986.
The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System , Marshall McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael Karels and John Quarterman, Addison-Wesley, 1996.
Interprocess Communications in UNIX, John Gray, Prentice Hall, 1997.
Programming with UNIX Threads, Charles J. Northrup, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.
Practical UNIX Programming: A Guide to Concurrency, Communication, and Multithreading, Kay Robbins and Steven Robbins, Prentice Hall, 1996.
UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers, Uresh Vahalia, Prentice Hall, 1996.
A Practical Guide to the UNIX System, Mark Sobell, 3rd ed., Benjamin/Cummings, 1995.
UNIX for Programmers and Users, Graham Glass & King Ables, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 1999.

Web Resources (a very incomplete list)

Class discussion group on Yahoo

A discussion group for the class has been created at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cop4604_spring02
Questions concerning the course can be posted there for response by other students or by Dr. Levow to be shared with all members of the class. You can participate in the group if you wish in several ways. If you subscribe, you will receive copies of all emails posted to the group and can post messages to the group. Alternatively, you can visit the site and view all messages posted there, with or without joining the group.

Many resources can be found by using various search engines

FAU Red Hat Linux Mirror (http://redhatmirror.fau.edu/) of current software distribution
Linux Documentation Project (http://www.linuxdoc.org/) - linux documentation, tutorials, man pages, FAQs
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com/)
Linux Gazette (http://www.linuxgazette.com/)
Heiner's SHELLdorado (http://oase-shareware.org/shell/) - shell scripting resource
Linux/Unix Tutorial Site (http://www.ctssn.com/)
Google C Programming Tutorial List (http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Programming/Languages/C/Tutorials/)
Notes by Tiko Kameda of Simor Fraser Univ. on Unix file system (http://www.cs.sfu.ca/CC/760/tiko/lecnotes/5.ooFS.pdf)

Click here to view the Course Syllabus

Click here for general information on course policies including program submission, late penalties, getting help, etc.

Lecture Tpoics, Reading Assignments, and Exam Schedule

January 12: Course Intro., Intro to Linux/Unix (Ch.1)
January 19: Shell Programming (Ch.2)
January 26: C Language Topics for System Programming, Files and Directories (Ch.3)
February 2: Ch. 3 continued
February 9: The Unix Environment (Ch. 4)
February 16: Ch. 4 continued
February 23: Exam 1 (1 hour); lecture after exam on Tools and Debugging (Ch. 8 & 9)

Program Solutions

March 2: Processes and Signals (Ch. 10 - reading quiz)
March 9: Spring Break
March 16: Processes (cont.)
March 23: Signals and Course Project Code review
March 30: Course Project Code review (cont.)
April 6: Exam 2 (1 hour 20 min), lecture on project code
April 13: Project Presentation Sign-up, project code for trap, and more
April 20: Project support
April 27: Final exam

Course Notes

¶ - Derived from notes by Dr. Sam Hsu

Programming Assignments

Shell Script chmodr. Due 1/26
File processing: Due 2/9
chmodr program: Due 2/23
File processing 2: Due 3/16
Timing shell: Due 3/30

Project

Project, version 1.03
Base code for project
Submission: The project will be due not later than Thursday, May 2. Each group must sign up for a presentation time and submit the project code and documentation with hwroy by that time. Bring printed copy of code and documentation for submission at presentation time.

Assignments, Exams and Grading

There will be short a short quiz before each class based on assigned readings. The final exam will be cumulative and will last about 2 and a half hours. Quizzes will be closed book; exams will be open book. In computing the final grade, homework will count 17%, project 22%, exams 17% each, and the final exam 27%.

Programming Environment

Programming must be done in the Linux/Unix environment, generally in C, using the system calls studied in the course. If you have a personal PC, it is recommended that you install Linux on it. If you provide blank writable CDs, you can create installation CDs in the CSE Davie lab. The authors of the text have provided a substantial number of examples that are useful for study and from which much can be learned by testing modifications.

This course was originally developed by Prof. Sam Hsu. Materials from his course can be viewed here .

COP 4604 -- Unix System Programming Sequence #6211, Term: Spring 2002 Last modified: 23 April 2002 by R.Levow