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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:16:09 +1100 (EST)
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
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To: Dag-Erling =?iso-8859-1?q?Sm=F8rgrav?= <des@des.no>
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cc: arch@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: per-device sysctls
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On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Dag-Erling [iso-8859-1] Sm=F8rgrav wrote:

> "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> writes:
> > How is this different than the sysctl stuff that already exsists for
> > this and is accessed by devinfo?
>
>  1) it is immensely easier to access
>
>  2) it gives drivers a well-defined place to put their per-device
>     sysctl variables - devinfo doesn't address that issue at all

Only broken drivers use sysctl variables.  ioctl(3) is a much better
interface that sysctl(3) for accessing per-device info.  sysctl(8) is
a better interface than ioctl(8) for handling the few device control
things that can be done in a generic way, but this is only because
there are so few such things that ioctl(8) doesn't exist.

Bruce