syscall

Short for system call.

syscall (plural syscalls)

1. (computing) A software request for a service from the operating system kernel.
   • 2009, Jatinder N. D. Gupta, Sushil K. Sharma, Handbook of research on information security and assurance:

     At an assembly code level, when a process wants to make a syscall, it will load the syscall number into the EAX register […]

   • 2010, Michael Resch, Katharina Benkert, Xin Wang, High Performance Computing on Vector Systems 2010, page 57:

     In addition, the relatively slow scalar CPU of the SX-9 and high cost of context switches (interrupts, syscalls) due to the huge context that needs to be stored away (like vector registers) contribute their part to the very poor UDP performance.

• Scallys