POSIX - Austin Joint Working Group

Andrew Josey

The Portable Applications Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society carried out a series of analyses of various problems encountered by users of IEEE Std 1003.1 -1990, IEEE Standard for Information Technology- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX)- Part 1: System Application Program Interface (API) and IEEE Std 2003.1 -1992, IEEE Standard for Information Technology- Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to POSIX- Part 1: System Interfaces. The results of its deliberations are presented in this document. The intent is to give the POSIX community reasonable ways of interpreting unclear portions of these standards.

This standard defines a standard operating system interface and environment, including a command interpreter (or "shell"), and common utility programs to support applications portability at the source code level. It is the single common revision to IEEE Std 1003.1-1996, IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, and the Base Specifications of The Open Group Single UNIX(R)? Specification, Version 2. This standard is intended to be used by both applications developers and system implementors and comprises four major components (each in an associated volume)

This technical corrigendum addresses issues raised in defect reports and interpretation requests submitted up to the date of approval of this PAR by NESCOM, that meet all of the following criteria: a. They are in the scope of the approved standard. b. They contain no new APIs (functions/utilities); however they may add enumeration symbols, non-function #defines, and reserve additional namespaces. c. They address contradictions between different parts of the standard, or add consistency between the standard and overriding standards, or address security-related problems.

Technical Corrigendum 2 addresses problems discovered since the approval of the 2003 edition of The Open Group Base Specifications, Issue 6, IEEE Std 1003.1, and ISO/IEC 9945. These are mainly due to resolving integration issues raised by the merger of the original Base documents.

This Technical Corrigendum addresses problems discovered since the approval of IEEE Std 1003.1TM -2008.

Problems discovered since the approval of IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 and IEEE Std 1003.1-2008/Cor 1-2013 are addressed.

POSIX.1-2017 is simultaneously IEEE Std 1003.1-2017 and The Open Group Standard Base Specifications, Issue 7. POSIX.1-2017 defines a standard operating system interface and environment, including a command interpreter (or ?shell?), and common utility programs to support applications portability at the source code level. POSIX.1-2017 is intended to be used by both application developers and system implementors and comprises four major components (each in an associated volume): ? General terms, concepts, and interfaces common to all volumes of this standard, including utility conventions and C-language header definitions, are included in the Base Definitions volume. ? Definitions for system service functions and subroutines, language-specific system services for the C programming language, function issues, including portability, error handling, and error recovery, are included in the System Interfaces volume. ? Definitions for a standard source code-level interface to command interpretation services (a ?shell?) and common utility programs for application programs are included in the Shell and Utilities volume. ? Extended rationale that did not fit well into the rest of the document structure, which contains historical information concerning the contents of POSIX.1-201x and why features were included or discarded by the standard developers, is included in the Rationale (Informative) volume. The following areas are outside the scope of POSIX.1-201x: ? Graphics interfaces ? Database management system interfaces ? Record I/O considerations ? Object or binary code portability ? System configuration and resource availability POSIX.1-2017 describes the external characteristics and facilities that are of importance to application developers, rather than the internal construction techniques employed to achieve these capabilities. Special emphasis is placed on those functions and facilities that are needed in a wide variety of commercial applications.