- Many system calls exist simply for the purpose of transferring information between the user program and the OS. For example, most systems have a system call to return the current time and date.
- Other system calls may return information about the system, such as the number of current users, the version number of the OS, the amount of free memory or disk space, and so on.
- In addition, the OS keeps information about all its processes, and system calls are used to access this information. Generally, calls are also used to reset the process information (get process attributes and set process attributes).
Cem Ozdogan
2010-02-19