From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 19 21:36:24 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DE9D1065673 for ; Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:36:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (bsdimp.com [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0DDD8FC28 for ; Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:36:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.14.3/8.14.1) with ESMTP id p0JLVv73024879 for ; Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:31:57 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Message-ID: <4D37584D.6060305@bsdimp.com> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:31:57 -0700 From: Warner Losh User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101211 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org References: <201101191559.07713.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <201101191559.07713.jhb@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Weed-whacking sysctl(8) X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:36:24 -0000 On 01/19/2011 13:59, John Baldwin wrote: > I guess I fail to see why sysctl giving a hint about the semantic type of > the data ("temperature", "struct foo") which is separate from the "physical" > type (e.g. 32-bit or 64-bit) is such a bad thing. Yes. Especially since the data could be degrees C, degrees F or some other weirdness. You can't divorce the semantic interpretation of the data from the data type. Both are important to interpret this data correctly. I'm in the "IK isn't icky enough to rototill" camp. Warner