3.3. The Standard C Library; The GNU C Library (glibc)

There are different implementations of the standard C library on the various UNIX implementations. The most commonly used implementation on Linux is the GNU C library (glibc, http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/).

Note:

The principal developer and maintainer of the GNU C library was initially Roland McGrath. Nowadays, this task is carried out by Ulrich Drepper.

Various other C libraries are available for Linux, including libraries with smaller memory requirements for use in embedded device applications. Examples include uClibc (http://www.uclibc.org/) and diet libc (http://www.fefe.de/dietlibc/). In this book, we confine the discussion to glibc, since that is the C library used by most applications developed on Linux.