About This Reference

This preface includes:

What you'll find in this guide

The Library Reference describes the C functions, data types, and protocols that are included as part of the QNX Neutrino RTOS.

For information about: See:
Specific entries A ¦ B ¦ C ¦ D ¦ E ¦ F ¦ G ¦ H ¦ I ¦ J ¦ K ¦ L ¦ M ¦ N ¦ O ¦ P ¦ Q ¦ R ¦ S ¦ T ¦ U ¦ V ¦ W ¦ X ¦ Y ¦ Z
An overview of what you'll find in each entry What's in a Function Description?
Descriptions of the manifests that you can use for compile-time changes or inspection Manifests
The SOCKS package SOCKS — A Basic Firewall
A summary of functions that are cancellation points, that you can safely call from an interrupt handler, that you can safely call from a signal handler, and that you can't safely call from a multithreaded program. Summary of Safety Information
Complete safety information Full Safety Information
Changes to this reference What's New in this Reference?
Terms used in QNX documentation Glossary

For information about programming in Neutrino, see Getting Started with QNX Neutrino: A Guide for Realtime Programmers and the Neutrino Programmer's Guide.

For information about licensing, see:

Typographical conventions

Throughout this manual, we use certain typographical conventions to distinguish technical terms. In general, the conventions we use conform to those found in IEEE POSIX publications. The following table summarizes our conventions:

Reference Example
Code examples if( stream == NULL )
Command options -lR
Commands make
Environment variables PATH
File and pathnames /dev/null
Function names exit()
Keyboard chords Ctrl-Alt-Delete
Keyboard input something you type
Keyboard keys Enter
Program output login:
Programming constants NULL
Programming data types unsigned short
Programming literals 0xFF, "message string"
Variable names stdin
User-interface components Cancel

We use an arrow (→) in directions for accessing menu items, like this:

You'll find the Other... menu item under Perspective-->Show View.

We use notes, cautions, and warnings to highlight important messages:


Note: Notes point out something important or useful.


Caution: Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have unwanted or undesirable side effects.


WARNING: Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself.

Note to Windows users

In our documentation, we use a forward slash (/) as a delimiter in all pathnames, including those pointing to Windows files.

We also generally follow POSIX/UNIX filesystem conventions.

Navigation buttons

At the top and bottom of our HTML docs, you'll see some or all of these buttons:

Use this button: To move:
Previous To the previous part of the document.
Contents “Up” in the document:
  • In a prose book, this typically takes you to About This Guide.
  • In a reference book, it takes you to the listing of items that start with a given letter. For example, if you're looking at the docs for abs(), this button takes you to the listing of the functions that start with A.
Keyword index To the keyword index.
Next To the next part of the document.

Technical support

To obtain technical support for any QNX product, visit the Support area on our website (www.qnx.com). You'll find a wide range of support options, including community forums.

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