DATA SIMPLIFICATION: System Calls

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing on topics related to my latest book, Data Simplification: Taming Information With Open Source Tools (release date March 23, 2016). I hope I can convince you that this is a book worth reading. Blog readers can use the discount code: COMP315 for a 30% discount, at checkout.A system call is a command line, inserted into a software program, that interrupts the script while the operating system executes the command line. Immediately afterwords, the script resumes, at the next line. Any utility that runs from the command line can be embedded in any scripting language that supports system calls, and this includes all of the languages discussed in this book. Here are the properties of system calls that make them useful to programmers: 1. System calls can be inserted into iterative loops (e.g., while loops, for loops), so that they can be repeated any number of times, on collections of files, or data elements. 2. Variables that are generated at run-time (i.e.,during the execution of the script) can be included as arguments added to the system call. 3. The results of the system call can be returned to the script, and used as variables. 4. System calls can utilize any operating system command and any program that would normally be invoked through a command line, including external scripts written in other programming languages. Hence, a system call can initiate an external script written in an alternate programming language, composed at run...
Source: Specified Life - Category: Information Technology Tags: complexity computer science data analysis data repurposing data simplification data wrangling information science perl python Ruby simplifying data system calls taming data Source Type: blogs