In computing, a system call is how a program requests a service from an operating system's kernel. This may include hardware related services (e.g. accessing the hard disk), creating and executing new processes, and communicating with integral kernel services (like scheduling). System calls provide an essential interface between a process and the operating system.
Read more about System Call: Privileges, The Library As An Intermediary, Examples and Tools, Typical Implementations, Processor Mode and Context Switching
Famous quotes containing the words system and/or call:
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last years weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)