Low-Level System Programming Projects (Hive Helsinki/42)
System Architecture & C Programming
Completed intensive low-level programming projects including Unix shell implementation, optimized sorting algorithms, and multithreading challenges. Focused on system architecture, memory management, and algorithm design.
Technical Architecture
Pure C programming following 42 Network coding standards. No external libraries allowed, emphasizing deep understanding of system calls and low-level operations.
Direct use of Unix/Linux system calls for process creation, file operations, signal handling, and inter-process communication.
Debugging with GDB, memory leak detection with Valgrind, build automation with Make, and version control with Git.
Manual memory allocation/deallocation, algorithm optimization, efficient data structure implementation, and thread synchronization.
Key Features & Implementation
- Process management: fork(), execve(), wait() for command execution
- Pipe operations (|) for inter-process communication
- Input/output redirections (<, >, <<, >>)
- Environment variable handling ($PATH, $HOME, custom variables)
- Signal processing (SIGINT, SIGQUIT) for proper shell behavior
- Built-in commands (cd, echo, pwd, export, unset, env, exit)
- Demonstrates deep understanding of OS fundamentals and system architecture
- Sorting algorithm using two stacks with restricted operations
- Maximum efficiency constraints (3 numbers: ≤3 ops, 5 numbers: ≤12 ops)
- Algorithm complexity analysis and optimization
- Custom data structure implementation for stacks
- Advanced problem-solving with limited operation set
- Demonstrates algorithm design and complexity analysis skills
- Implementation of standard C library functions from scratch
- String manipulation (strlen, strcpy, strdup, etc.)
- Memory operations (memset, memcpy, memmove, etc.)
- Character checking and conversion functions
- Linked list implementation and manipulation
- Foundation for all subsequent projects
- Custom implementation of printf with variadic functions
- Format specifier parsing (%c, %s, %d, %i, %u, %x, %X, %p)
- Buffer management for efficient output
- Flag and width handling for formatting
- Demonstrates understanding of variadic arguments and formatting
- Dining philosophers problem implementation with threads
- Mutex usage for resource synchronization
- Deadlock prevention and race condition avoidance
- Thread creation and lifecycle management
- Precise timing with gettimeofday() for simulation accuracy
- Demonstrates concurrent programming and synchronization mastery
- ✓Completed intensive 42 Network curriculum emphasizing system-level programming
- ✓Built Unix shell replica demonstrating OS and system architecture mastery
- ✓Developed highly optimized sorting algorithm meeting strict complexity requirements
- ✓Implemented complete C standard library from scratch without external dependencies
- ✓Solved complex multithreading synchronization problems (dining philosophers)
- ✓Gained deep proficiency in memory management, debugging, and low-level programming