Preface

The Application Packaging Developer’s Guide provides step-by-step instructions and relevant background information for designing, building, and verifying packages. This guide also includes advanced techniques that you might find helpful during the package creation process.

Note –

This Solaris^TM release supports systems that use the SPARC® and x86 families of processor architectures: UltraSPARC®, SPARC64, AMD64, Pentium, and Xeon EM64T. The supported systems appear in the Solaris OS: Hardware Compatibility Lists at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl. This document cites any implementation differences between the platform types.

In this document these x86 related terms mean the following:

“x86” refers to the larger family of 64-bit and 32-bit x86 compatible products.
“x64” points out specific 64-bit information about AMD64 or EM64T systems.
“32-bit x86” points out specific 32-bit information about x86 based systems.

For supported systems, see the Solaris OS: Hardware Compatibility Lists.

Who Should Use This Book

This book is intended for application developers whose responsibilities include designing and building packages.

Though much of the book is directed towards novice package developers, it also contains information useful to more experienced package developers.

How This Book Is Organized

The following table describes the chapters in this book.

Chapter Name	Chapter Description
Chapter 1, Designing a Package	Describes package components and package design criteria. Also describes related commands, files, and scripts.
Chapter 2, Building a Package	Describes the process and required tasks for building a package. Also provides step-by-step instructions for each task.
Chapter 3, Enhancing the Functionality of a Package (Tasks)	Provides step-by-step instructions for adding optional features to a package.
Chapter 4, Verifying and Transferring a Package	Describes how to verify the integrity of a package and how to transfer a package to a distribution medium.
Chapter 5, Case Studies of Package Creation	Provides case studies for creating packages.
Chapter 6, Advanced Techniques for Creating Packages	Describes advanced techniques for creating packages.
Glossary	Defines terms used in this book.

Related Books

The following documentation, available through retail booksellers, can provide additional background information on building System V packages.

System V Application Binary Interface
System V Application Binary Interface - SPARC Processor Supplement
System V Application Binary Interface - Intel386 Processor Supplement

Documentation, Support, and Training

The Sun web site provides information about the following additional resources:

Sun Welcomes Your Comments

Sun is interested in improving its documentation and welcomes your comments and suggestions. To share your comments, go to http://docs.sun.com and click Feedback.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic conventions that are used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions


Typeface	Meaning	Example
`AaBbCc123`	The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output	Edit your `.login` file. Use `ls -a` to list all files. `machine_name% you have mail.`
`AaBbCc123`	What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output	`machine_name%` `su` `Password:`
`aabbcc123`	Placeholder: replace with a real name or value	The command to remove a file is `rm` `filename`.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide. A cache is a copy that is stored locally. Do not save the file. Note: Some emphasized items appear bold online.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default UNIX® system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P–2 Shell Prompts


Shell	Prompt
C shell	`machine_name%`
C shell for superuser	`machine_name#`
Bourne shell and Korn shell	`$`
Bourne shell and Korn shell for superuser	`#`