> > > Handling spaces and newlines is easy enough - see the patches from Al
> > > Viro, for example.
> >
> > Why are we doing this parsing in the kernel when it can be done in user
> > space?
>
> We're not parsing anything.
>
> We're marshalling the data into a format that is independent of whatever
> internal representation the kernel happens to have for it that particular
> day.
>
> A representation that is valid across architectures, and a representation
> that is unambiguous. A representation that various scripts can trivially
> use, and a representation that is not bound by fixed-sized fields or other
> idiocy.
>
> In short, text strings.
>
> They have advantages even for a computer. Fixed-size binary interfaces are
> BAD for information interchange. They are bad as a word document file
> format, they are bad for email, and they are bad for /proc. Get it?
>
> Would you prefer doc-files to be standard text, marshalled into some
> logical form? Or do you prefer binary blobs of data that is limited by the
> binary format?
>
> Linus
>
>
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