This standard has been jointly developed by the IEEE and The Open Group. It is both an IEEE Standard and an Open Group Technical Standard.

Abstract: The 2004 edition incorporates Technical Corrigendum Number 1 and Technical Corrigendum 2 addressing problems discovered since the approval of the 2001 edition. These are mainly due to resolving integration issues raised by the merger of the Base documents.

This standard defines a standard operating system interface and environment, including a command interpreter (or "shell"), and common utility programs to support applications portability at the source code level. This standard is the single common revision to IEEE Std 1003.1-1996, IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, and the Base Specifications of The Open Group Single UNIX Specification, Version 2. This standard is intended to be used by both applications developers and system implementors. It comprises four major components (each in an associated volume):

1. General terms, concepts, and interfaces common to all volumes of this standard , including utility conventions and C-language header definitions, are included in the Base Definitions volume (XBD).
2. Definitions for system service functions and subroutines, language-specific system services for the C programming language, function issues, including portability, error handling, and error recovery, are included in the System Interfaces volume (XSH).
3. Definitions for a standard source code-level interface to command interpretation services (a "shell" and common utility programs for application programs are included in the Shell and Utilities volume (XCU).
4. Extended rationale that did not fit well into the rest of the document structure, containing historical information concerning the contents of this standard and why features were included or discarded by the standard developers, is included in the Rationale (Informative) volume (XRAT).

Frontmatter (Informative)

[ Preface | Participants | Referenced Documents | Trademarks | Typographical Conventions ]

Tables of Contents by volume: [ XBD | XSH | XCU | XRAT ]

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