Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 11:05:48 -0500 From: "Garrett A. Wollman" <wollman@lcs.mit.edu> To: se@zpr.uni-koeln.de (Stefan Esser) Cc: "Garrett A. Wollman" <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: sysctl status right now, and plea for testing. Message-ID: <9512071605.AA11742@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <199512062244.AA11948@Sysiphos> References: <wollman@lcs.mit.edu> <199512062244.AA11948@Sysiphos>
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<<On Wed, 6 Dec 1995 23:44:40 +0100, se@zpr.uni-koeln.de (Stefan Esser) said: > Yes. But without a dynamic name space it was no use for > my purposes. Can't predefine 65536 entries for all possible > PCI devices in one system (bus=0..255,slot=0..31,func=0..7). No, you just define ones for the devices that are actually present! > There might be several memory mappings active at a time for > a single chip. Or none at all. This suggests that sysctl(8) is probably not the best user interface for this information. No problem; it's not the best user interface for kern.proc (`ps') or net.inet.udp.stats (`netstat'), either. > } where the actual representation is an array (no need for a separate > } count since we know the size) or, perhaps, a string (for easy parsing > } by shell programs). > Hmm, no, we don't know the size ... You have to be able to compute the size or you can't use sysctl. (Or any other mechanism, for that matter.) > Well, if there is a user interface to query system configuration > variables (i.e. sysctl), why not use it. Because sysctl is not the be-all and end-all of configuration mechanisms. Some subsystems are better off with a special-purpose configuration mechanism designed specifically for the task at hand. I would not replace quota(2) with sysctl(3)! -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant
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