source: appendixa/glibc-desc.xml@ 7e602eab

<sect2><title>&nbsp;</title><para>&nbsp;</para></sect2>

<sect2><title>Descriptions</title>

<para>(Last checked against version &glibc-contversion;.)</para>

<sect3><title>Program file descriptions</title>

<para><command>catchsegv</command> can be used to create a stack trace
when a program terminates with a segmentation fault.</para>

<para><command>gencat</command> generates message catalogues.</para>

<para><command>getconf</command> displays the system configuration values
for filesystem specific variables.</para>

<para><command>getent</command> gets entries from an administrative
database.</para>

<para><command>glibcbug</command> creates a bug report and mails it to the
bug email address.</para>

<para><command>iconv</command> performs character set conversion.</para>

<para><command>iconvconfig</command> creates fastloading iconv module
configuration file.</para>

<para><command>ldconfig</command> configures the dynamic linker runtime
bindings.</para>

<para><command>ldd</command> reports which shared libraries are required
by each given program or shared library.</para>

<para><command>lddlibc4</command> assists ldd with object files.</para>

<para><command>locale</command> is a Perl program that tells the compiler
to enable or disable the use of POSIX locales for built-in operations.</para>

<para><command>localedef</command> compiles locale specifications.</para>

<para><command>mtrace</command>...</para>

<para><command>nscd</command> is a name service cache daemon providing a
cache for the most common name service requests.</para>

<para><command>nscd_nischeck</command> checks whether or not secure mode
is necessary for NIS+ lookup.</para>

<para><command>pcprofiledump</command> dumps information generated by
PC profiling.</para>

<para><command>pt_chown</command> is a helper program for grantpt to set
the owner, group and access permissions of a slave pseudo terminal.</para>

<para><command>rpcgen</command> generates C code to implement the
RPC protocol.</para>

<para><command>rpcinfo</command> makes an RPC call to an RPC server.</para>

<para><command>sln</command> is used to make symbolic links. The program
is statically linked, so it is useful for making symbolic links to dynamic
libraries if the dynamic linking system for some reason is nonfunctional.</para>

<para><command>sprof</command> reads and displays shared object profiling
data.</para>

<para><command>tzselect</command> asks the user about the location of the
system and reports the corresponding time zone description.</para>

<para><command>xtrace</command> traces the execution of a program by
printing the currently executed function.</para>

<para><command>zdump</command> is the time zone dumper.</para>

<para><command>zic</command> is the time zone compiler.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>Library file descriptions</title>

<para><command>ld.so</command> is the helper program for shared library
executables.</para>

<para><command>libBrokenLocale</command> is used by programs, such as
Mozilla, to solve broken locales.</para>

<para><command>libSegFault</command> is a segmentation fault signal
handler. It tries to catch segfaults.</para>

<para><command>libanl</command> is an asynchronous name lookup
library.</para>

<para><command>libbsd-compat</command> provides the portability needed
in order to run certain BSD programs under Linux.</para>

<para><command>libc</command> is the main C library -- a collection of
commonly used functions.</para>

<para><command>libcrypt</command> is the cryptography library.</para>

<para><command>libdl</command> is the dynamic linking interface library.</para>

<para><command>libg</command> is a runtime library for g++.</para>

<para><command>libieee</command> is the IEEE floating point library.</para>

<para><command>libm</command> is the mathematical library.</para>

<para><command>libmcheck</command> contains code run at boot.</para>

<para><command>libmemusage</command> is used by memusage to help collect
information about the memory usage of a program.</para>

<para><command>libnsl</command> is the network services library.</para>

<para><command>libnss*</command> are the Name Service Switch libraries,
containing functions for resolving host names, user names, group names,
aliases, services, protocols,and the like.</para>

<para><command>libpcprofile</command> contains profiling functions used
to track the amount of CPU time spent in which source code lines.</para>

<para><command>libpthread</command> is the POSIX threads library.</para>

<para><command>libresolv</command> contains functions for creating,
sending, and interpreting packets to the Internet domain name servers.</para>

<para><command>librpcsvc</command>contains functions providing
miscellaneous RPC services.</para>

<para><command>librt</command> contains functions providing most of the
interfaces specified by the POSIX.1b Realtime Extension.</para>

<para><command>libthread_db</command> contains functions useful for
building debuggers for multi-threaded programs.</para>

<para><command>libutil</command> contains code for "standard" functions
used in many different Unix utilities.</para>

</sect3>

</sect2>