C/C++: Functions with variable numbers of arguments

A function usually takes an immutable number of arguments whose types are fixed when its code is compiled. But sometimes it is desirable to implement a function where the number of arguments is not constant or not known beforehand, when the function is written.For example, the printf function is a special type of routine that takes a variable number of arguments. The declaration requires a special syntax to indicate the fact that beyond a certain argument, the number and type of the parameters cannot be checked at compile time. Instead, the number...

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Solaris: Fixing sound card woes

Symptom:System cannot play any kind of audio files. All attempts to play audio files fail with can't find audio device dev/audioctl does not exist error message.Resolution:With mixerctl command:check if a driver has been installed for the sound card, andif a driver has already been installed, check the default or primary audio device.eg., % mixerctlmixerctl: device /dev/audioctl does not existThat means, the primary audio device is not configured properly./dev/audio is a symbolic link, points to the sound card device on the machine. It exists only...

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Solaris: Recovering from a Runtime Linker Failure -2

Recovering from a Solaris Runtime Linker failure shows some steps to bring back the system to normal state as soon as the runtime linker starts malfunctioning.The following steps show how to recover the system after the damage has been done ie., after the losing access to the system completely.The recovery process starts with booting Solaris from bootable CD-ROM. The steps are as follows:Put the CD-ROM into CD drive and reboot the system.From the boot solaris menu, select CD-ROM drive and then type b -s at the prompt.The other way is the type boot...

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Sun C/C++ compilers: Inlining routines

The C++ compiler has two kinds of inlining: front-end (parser) and back-end (code generator). The C and Fortran compilers have only back-end inlining. The same code generator is used for all compilers on a platform.Function inlining improves performance by replacing a call to a function with the body of the function itself. This eliminates the overhead of jumping to and returning from a subroutine. An additional advantage is that placing the function code "inline" exposes it to further optimization, enhancing performance even more.The C++ compiler...

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Solaris Linker: -B {static | dynamic}

By default, unless we explicitly specify by using a linker flag such as -Bstatic, the linker on Solaris will search a given directory for a shared object and link against the shared library if it is available. This means that the external reference will not be resolved until the code starts running and even then the linking will not take effect until an actual call is made to the routine requiring that library. If the linker couldn't find the relevant shared object in the search path, it will search for an archive (static) library. In the case...

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Solaris: Useful Commands - 1

pargs___________________________Prints process arguments, environment variables; pargs can examine both processes and their core fileseg.,% ps -eaf | grep mozilla-bin techno 11723 11704 0 22:05:35 ? 2:51 /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin -UILocale en-US -contentLocale US % pargs 1172311723: /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin -UILocale en-US -contentLocale USargv[0]: /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-binargv[1]: -UILocaleargv[2]: en-USargv[3]: -contentLocaleargv[4]: US% pargs -e 1172311723:...

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