term% cat index.txt SYSCALL(1) General Commands Manual SYSCALL(1)
NAME
syscall - test a system call
SYNOPSIS
syscall [ -osx ] entry [ arg ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Syscall invokes the system call entry with the given arguments. (Some
functions, such as write and read(2), although not strictly system
calls, are valid entries.) It prints the return value and the error
string, if there was an error. An argument is either an integer con‐
stant as in C (its value is passed), a string (its address is passed),
or the literal buf (a pointer to a 1MB buffer is passed).
If -o is given, the contents of the 1MB buffer are printed as a zero-
terminated string after the system call is done. The -x and -s options
are similar, but -x formats the data as hexadecimal bytes, while -s in‐
terprets the data as a stat(5) message and formats it similar to the
style of ls -lqm (see ls(1)), with extra detail about the modify and
access times.
EXAMPLES
Write a string to standard output:
syscall write 1 hello 5
Print information about the file connected to standard input:
syscall -s fstat 0 buf 1024
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/syscall
SEE ALSO
Section 2 of this manual.
DIAGNOSTICS
If entry is not known to syscall, the exit status is If the system call
succeeds, the exit status is null; otherwise the exit status is the
string that errstr(2) returns.
SYSCALL(1)