Re: PROPOSAL: /proc standards (was dot-proc interface [was: /proc

[Miquel van Smoorenburg]

In article <[e-mail]>,
William Knop <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>>Yes, but I meant a program which reads a single binary value and >outputs 
>>it as ascii, as a generic layer between the binary /proc and >the ascii 
>>world of shell scripts.
>>
>>I don't like a binary /proc.
>
>The binary issue could very easily be solved, as you said, by a small 
>generic program to do the conversion. Upside it only shell scripts need 
>this, while more advanced (lower level) programs will get better preformance 
>out of binary format. Downside? I am not sure I see the problem. If a 
>program needs to get a lot of /proc info frequently, a binary interface will 
>be faster. Idealistically, do we want the kernel interfaces binary or ascii? 
>Do we want them to preform best with (be native to) shell scripts or 
>programs?

Both. /proc in ascii for shell scripts etc, and sysctl() in binary
for C programs and the like.

Something like

sysctl(SYSCTL_GET, "fs.file-max", SYSCTL_TYPE_INT, &val, sizeof(val))

It gets you free type checking as well.

Perhaps you even want a opendir()/getdents() type sysctl function
so you can walk the tree without /proc being mounted at all.

Mike.
-- 
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
 and I'm not sure about the former" -- Albert Einstein.