Frequently Asked Questions
Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

General Information

What is the MIPS ABI? What is it for?
What systems support the ABI?
What is the Reference Platform model?
Which Reference Platform version should I use?
What is the Black Book?
What makes up the spec? Further reading
Where to find documents, support, info
Which version of the ABI does a system support?
What is OCMP?

Programming

Which preprocessor symbols should be used?
Where are the right include files?
Where's the socket Code? rpc? xdr?
Global symbols in dlopen attachments
Where's regex?
Where's nlist?
Using /proc Instead of ptrace.
What is the mutual exclusion library?
What to use instead of bcopy, bzero, bcmp
What to use instead of index, rindex
Can I use strcasecmp?
What to use instead of getwd
What to use instead of getdtablesize
How to use setjmp And longjmp
What to use instead of gethostname
What to use instead of gethostid
What to use instead of getpagesize
How to open a pseudo-tty
Using termios routines
Where are ltchars defined?
Do I need to use IEEE math?
How to use signals
Waiting for children to exit
Timing programs, or HZ is undefined
gettimeofday takes only one argument
Shadow password file
Dereferencing NULL pointers
/etc/mtab or /etc/mnttab?
/etc/fstab or /etc/vfstab?
Multiply defined global symbols
Using stat/fstat/lstat
Using mknod

Building and Packaging

How do I make an ABI binary?
What if I have to use ld directly?
Integrating PIC assembly language
How to check if it's ABI compliant?
Building and shipping DSOs
Shipping objects and libraries: On-site linking
Distribution and media formats
Where to install programs and data
How to debug an ABI application
Finding what DSOs a program needs

Technology Questions

Which version of X11 is supported?
How much of X11 is supported by the ABI?
Which version of OSF/Motif is supported?
How much of OSF/Motif is supported by the ABI?
Does the ABI work on multiprocessor machines?
Does the ABI apply to secure UNIX?
What graphics extensions are supported?
Is asynchronous I/O supported?
What if the Global Offset Table is too small?
How can I take advantage newer processor instruction sets?
Is there an ABI C++? FORTRAN? Other languages

Reference Platform Setup, Bugs

Setting up the IRIX ABI environment
Device nodes not made in /dev/abi
Some installation directories in /opt not made
The -abi flag is not documented for cc or ld
Mount command does not take -F TYPE
Mount command does not take cdfs type
The monitor routine and profiling unavailable
libucb.a is not provided
_lib_version not set
Socket library needs to be replaced
Some ABI static archives are not ABI-clean
uname call workaround
Terminal Interface Routines
Undefined Symbols During On-Site Linking
Relocatable Objects Not ABI-Compliant
sigaltstack Incompatibility
makecontext Incompatibility
No Lex, Yacc Libraries
strtod Errors
FD_ZERO Macro in <sys/select.h>
Output Buffers Not Flushing
Divide-by-Zero Gives SIGTRAP
tanh Errors
abicc Doesn't Pass Some Linker Flags

Issues Specifically Regarding IRIX 5.3

Network Header Define Inconsistency
Syslog Inconsistency

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