STANDARDS(7) Linux Programmers Manual STANDARDS(7)
NAME
standards - C and UNIX Standards
DESCRIPTION
The CONFORMING TO section that appears in many manual pages identifies
various standards to which the documented interface conforms. The fol
lowing list briefly describes these standards.
V7 Version 7, the ancestral UNIX from Bell Labs.
4.2BSD This is an implementation standard defined by the 4.2 release of
the Berkeley Software Distribution, released by the University
of California at Berkeley. This was the first Berkeley release
that contained a TCP/IP stack and the sockets API. 4.2BSD was
released in 1983.
Earlier major BSD releases included 3BSD (1980), 4BSD (1980),
and 4.1BSD (1981).
4.3BSD The successor to 4.2BSD, released in 1986.
4.4BSD The successor to 4.3BSD, released in 1993. This was the last
major Berkeley release.
System V
This is an implementation standard defined by AT&Ts milestone
1983 release of its commercial System V (five) release. The
previous major AT&T release was System III, released in 1981.
System V release 2 (SVr2)
This was the next System V release, made in 1985. The SVr2 was
formally described in the System V Interface Definition version
1 (SVID 1) published in 1985.
System V release 3 (SVr3)
This was the successor to SVr2, released in 1986. This release
was formally described in the System V Interface Definition ver
sion 2 (SVID 2).
System V release 4 (SVr4)
This was the successor to SVr3, released in 1989. This version
of System V is described in the "Programmers Reference Manual:
Operating System API (Intel processors)" (Prentice-Hall 1992,
ISBN 0-13-951294-2) This release was formally described in the
System V Interface Definition version 3 (SVID 3), and is consid
ered the definitive System V release.
SVID 4 System V Interface Definition version 4, issued in 1995. Avail
able online at http://www.sco.com/developers/devspecs/ .
C89 This was the first C language standard, ratified by ANSI (Ameri
can National Standards Institute) in 1989 (X3.159-1989). Some
times this is known as ANSI C, but since C99 is also an ANSI
standard, this term is ambiguous. This standard was also rati
fied by ISO (International Standards Organization) in 1990
(ISO/IEC 9899:1990), and is thus occasionally referred to as ISO
C90.
C99 This revision of the C language standard was ratified by ISO in
1999 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999). Available online at http://www.open-
std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/standards.
POSIX.1-1990
"Portable Operating System Interface for Computing Environ
ments". IEEE 1003.1-1990 part 1, ratified by ISO in 1990
(ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990). Further information can be found in Don
ald Lewines "POSIX Programmers Guide" (OReilly & Associates,
Inc., 1991, ISBN 0-937175-73-0). The term "POSIX" was coined by
Richard Stallman.
POSIX.2
IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, describing commands and utilities, rati
fied by ISO in 1993 (ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993).
POSIX.1b (formerly known as POSIX.4)
IEEE Std 1003.1b-1993 describing real-time facilities for
portable operating systems, ratified by ISO in 1996 (ISO/IEC
9945-1:1996). For further information, see "POSIX.4: Program
ming for the real world" by Bill O. Gallmeister (OReilly & As
sociates, Inc. ISBN 1-56592-074-0).
POSIX.1c
IEEE Std 1003.1c-1995 describing the POSIX threads interfaces.
POSIX.1d
IEEE Std 1003.1c-1999 describing additional real-time exten
sions.
POSIX.1g
IEEE Std 1003.1g-2000 describing networking APIs (including
sockets).
POSIX.1j
IEEE Std 1003.1j-2000 describing advanced real-time extensions.
POSIX.1-1996
A 1996 revision of POSIX.1 which incorporated POSIX.1b and
POSIX.1c.
XPG3 Released in 1989, this was the first significant release of the
X/Open Portability Guide, produced by the X/Open Company, a
multi-vendor consortium. This multi-volume guide was based on
the POSIX standards.
XPG4 A revision of the X/Open Portability Guide, released in 1992.
XPG4v2 A 1994 revision of XPG4. This is also referred to as Spec 1170,
where 1170 referred to the number of interfaces defined by this
standard.
SUS (SUSv1)
Single UNIX Specification. This was a repackaging of XPG4v2 and
other X/Open standards (X/Open Curses Issue 4 version 2, X/Open
Networking Service (XNS) Issue 4). Systems conforming to this
standard can be branded UNIX 95.
SUSv2 Single UNIX Specification version 2. Sometimes also referred to
as XPG5. This standard appeared in 1997. Systems conforming to
this standard can be branded UNIX 98. See also http://www.UNIX-
systems.org/version2/ .)
POSIX.1-2001, SUSv3
This was a 2001 revision and consolidation of the POSIX.1,
POSIX.2, and SUS standards into a single document, conducted
under the auspices of the Austin group (http://www.open
group.org/austin/ .) The standard is available online at
http://www.unix-systems.org/version3/ , and the interfaces that
it describes are also available in the Linux manual pages
package under sections 1p and 3p (e.g., "man 3p open").
The standard defines two levels of conformance: POSIX confor
mance, which is a baseline set of interfaces required of a con
forming system; and XSI Conformance, which additionally mandates
a set of interfaces (the "XSI extension") which are only
optional for POSIX conformance. XSI-conformant systems can be
branded UNIX 03. (XSI conformance constitutes the Single UNIX
Specification version 3 (SUSv3).)
The POSIX.1-2001 document is broken into four parts:
XBD: Definitions, terms and concepts, header file specifica
tions.
XSH: Specifications of functions (i.e., system calls and library
functions in actual implementations).
XCU: Specifications of commands and utilities (i.e., the area
formerly described by POSIX.2).
XRAT: Informative text on the other parts of the standard.
POSIX.1-2001 is aligned with C99, so that all of the library
functions standardized in C99 are also standardized in
POSIX.1-2001.
Two Technical Corrigenda (minor fixes and improvements) of the
original 2001 standard have occurred: TC1 in 2003 (referred to
as POSIX.1-2003), and TC2 in 2004 (referred to as POSIX.1-2004).
POSIX.1-200x, SUSv4
Work is currently in progress on the next revision of
POSIX.1/SUS. The balloting on the revision is expected to be
completed in 2008, so that the revision is likely to be named
POSIX.1-2008.
The changes in this revision are not as large as those that
occurred for POSIX.1-2001/SUSv3, but a number of new interfaces
are added and various details of existing specifications are
modified. Many of the interfaces that were optional in
POSIX.1-2001 become mandatory in the next revision of the stan
dard.
The revised standard is broken into the same four parts as
POSIX.1-2001, and again there are two levels of conformance: the
baseline POSIX Conformance, and XSI Conformance, which mandates
an additional set of interfaces beyond those in the base speci
fication.
Further information can be found on the Austin group web site,
http://www.opengroup.org/austin/ .
SEE ALSO
feature_test_macros(7), posixoptions(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2007-11-15 STANDARDS(7)
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