From owner-freebsd-hackers  Sun Feb  8 09:18:14 1998
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 12:17:33 -0500 (EST)
From: "Stephen J. Roznowski" <sjr@home.net>
Message-Id: <199802081717.MAA02604@istari.home.net>
To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Possible problems with sysctl
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

While looking at some sysctl output, I noticed two problem:

1. sysctl can only output signed integers. For example, the output
   of "sysctl kern.ps_strings" is "-272637968" not "0xefbfdff0" as
   I suspect is meant. Assuming that this is an error, I see two
   ways of fixing it, either adding a "CTLTYPE_UINT" type, or a
   "CTLTYPE_ADDR" type. [I lean towards the _ADDR fix]

   Am I correct in assuming that sysctl is outputing the wrong
   format here, and is one of these fixes perferred?

   [I'm willing to attempt to generate a send-pr for this]

2. The man pages, both sysctl(3) and sysctl(8), are out of date.
   [No definitation of what kern.ps_strings is for example.] Is there
   a list anywhere of what these variables are (modulo source code)?
   Again, I'm willing to send-pr this, unless someone else wants to...  :-)

Thanks,
-SR


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