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How can I increase the allowable number of simultaneously open files?
I'm getting an error, ``Too many open files''. How can I increase the allowable number of simultaneously open files? A: There are typically at least two resource limitations on the number of simultaneously open files: the number of low-level ``file descriptors'' or ``file handles'' available in the ...
2015-04-03, 1256👍, 0💬

How can I find out how much free space is available on disk?
How can I find out how much free space is available on disk? There is no portable way. Under some versions of Unix you can call statfs. Under MS-DOS, use interrupt 0x21 subfunction 0x36, or perhaps a routine such as diskfree. Another possibility is to use popen to invoke and read the output of a ``d...
2015-04-03, 1142👍, 0💬

How can I read a directory in a C program?
How can I read a directory in a C program? See if you can use the opendir and readdir functions, which are part of the POSIX standard and are available on most Unix variants. Implementations also exist for MS-DOS, VMS, and other systems. (MS-DOS also has FINDFIRST and FINDNEXT routines which do esse...
2015-04-01, 1292👍, 0💬

How do I create a directory? How do I remove a directory (and its contents)?
How do I create a directory? How do I remove a directory (and its contents)? If your operating system supports these services, they are likely to be provided in C via functions named mkdir and rmdir. Removing a directory's contents as well will require listing them and calling remove . If you don't ...
2015-04-01, 1253👍, 0💬

How can I find out how much memory is available?
How can I find out how much memory is available? Your operating system may provide a routine which returns this information, but it's quite system-dependent. (Also, the number may vary over time.) If you're trying to predict whether you'll be able to allocate a certain amount of memory, just try it-...
2015-03-30, 1301👍, 0💬

How can I allocate arrays or structures bigger than 64K?
How can I allocate arrays or structures bigger than 64K? A reasonable computer ought to give you transparent access to all available memory. If you're not so lucky, you'll either have to rethink your program's use of memory, or use various system-specific techniques. 64K is (still) a pretty big chun...
2015-03-30, 1239👍, 0💬

I thought that using large model meant that I could use more than 64K of data!
What does the error message ``DGROUP data allocation exceeds 64K'' mean, and what can I do about it? I thought that using large model meant that I could use more than 64K of data! Even in large memory models, MS-DOS compilers apparently toss certain data (strings, some initialized global or static v...
2015-03-20, 1231👍, 0💬

How can I do PEEK and POKE in C?
How can I access memory (a memory-mapped device, or graphics memory) located at a certain address? How can I do PEEK and POKE in C? Set a pointer, of the appropriate type, to the right number (using an explicit cast to assure the compiler that you really do intend this nonportable conversion): unsig...
2015-03-20, 1297👍, 0💬

How can I invoke another program (a standalone executable, or an operating system command) from within a C program?
How can I invoke another program (a standalone executable, or an operating system command) from within a C program? Use the library function system, which does exactly that. Some systems also provide a family of spawn routines which accomplish approximately the same thing. system is more ``portable'...
2015-03-18, 1255👍, 0💬

How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time?
How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time? Just use sprintf (or perhaps strcpy and strcat) to build the command string in a buffer, then call system with that buffer. (Make sure the buffer is allocated with enough space; Here is a cont...
2015-03-18, 1257👍, 0💬

How do I get an accurate error status return from system on MS-DOS?
How do I get an accurate error status return from system on MS-DOS? You can't; COMMAND.COM doesn't tend to provide one. If you don't need COMMAND.COM's services (i.e. if you're just trying to invoke a simple program, without I/O redirection and such) try one of the spawn routines, instead.
2015-03-16, 1259👍, 0💬

How can I invoke another program or command and trap its output?
How can I invoke another program or command and trap its output? Unix and some other systems provide a popen function, which sets up a stdio stream on a pipe connected to the process running a command, so that the calling program can read the output (or alternatively supply the input). Using popen, ...
2015-03-16, 1247👍, 0💬

How can my program discover the complete pathname to the executable from which it was invoked?
How can my program discover the complete pathname to the executable from which it was invoked? argv[0] may contain all or part of the pathname, or it may contain nothing. You may be able to duplicate the command language interpreter's search path logic to locate the executable if the name in argv[0]...
2015-03-13, 1210👍, 0💬

How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable?
How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable? It's hard, in general; Even if you can figure out a workable way to do it, you might want to consider making the program's auxiliary (library) directory configurable, perhaps with an environment va...
2015-03-13, 1241👍, 0💬

How can a process change an environment variable in its caller?
How can a process change an environment variable in its caller? It may or may not be possible to do so at all. Different operating systems implement global name/value functionality similar to the Unix environment in different ways. Whether the ``environment'' can be usefully altered by a running pro...
2015-03-11, 1234👍, 0💬

How can I open files mentioned on the command line, and parse option flags?
How can I open files mentioned on the command line, and parse option flags? Here is a skeleton which implements a traditional Unix-style argv parse, handling option flags beginning with -, and optional filenames. (The two flags accepted by this example are -a and -b; -b takes an argument.) #include ...
2015-03-11, 1308👍, 0💬

Is exit(status) truly equivalent to returning the same status from main?
Is exit(status) truly equivalent to returning the same status from main? Yes and no. The Standard says that a return from the initial call to main is equivalent to calling exit. However, a return from main cannot be expected to work if data local to main might be needed during cleanup; A few very ol...
2015-03-09, 1253👍, 0💬

How can I read in an object file and jump to locations in it?
How can I read in an object file and jump to locations in it? You want a dynamic linker or loader. It may be possible to malloc some space and read in object files, but you have to know an awful lot about object file formats, relocation, etc., and this approach can't work if code and data reside in ...
2015-03-09, 1272👍, 0💬

How can I implement a delay, or time a users response, with sub-second resolution?
How can I implement a delay, or time a users response, with sub-second resolution? Unfortunately, there is no portable way. Routines you might look for on your system include clock, delay, ftime, gettimeofday, msleep, nap, napms, nanosleep, setitimer, sleep, Sleep, times, and usleep. (A function cal...
2015-03-06, 1190👍, 0💬

How can I trap or ignore keyboard interrupts like control-C?
How can I trap or ignore keyboard interrupts like control-C? The basic step is to call signal, either as #include &lt;signal.h> signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN); to ignore the interrupt signal, or as extern void func(int); signal(SIGINT, func); to cause control to transfer to function func on receipt of ...
2015-03-06, 1222👍, 0💬

How can I handle floating-point exceptions gracefully?
How can I handle floating-point exceptions gracefully? On many systems, you can define a function matherr which will be called when there are certain floating-point errors, such as errors in the math routines in &lt;math.h>. You may also be able to use signal to catch SIGFPE
2015-03-04, 1246👍, 0💬

How can I ensure that integer arithmetic doesnt overflow?
How can I ensure that integer arithmetic doesnt overflow? The usual approach is to test the operands against the limits in the header file &lt;limits.h> before doing the operation. For example, here is a ``careful'' addition function: int chkadd(int a, int b) { if(INT_MAX - b &lt; a) { fputs...
2015-03-04, 1242👍, 0💬

I am trying to compile this program
I'm trying to compile this program, but the compiler is complaining that ``union REGS'' is undefined, and the linker is complaining that int86 is undefined. Those have to do with MS-DOS interrupt programming. They don't exist on other systems.
2015-03-02, 1227👍, 0💬

What are near and far pointers?
What are near and far pointers? These days, they're pretty much obsolete; they're definitely system-specific. They had to do with 16-bit programming under MS-DOS and perhaps some early versions of Windows. If you really need to know, see a DOS- or Windows-specific programming reference. If you're us...
2015-03-02, 1255👍, 0💬

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