From owner-cvs-all Sat Jan 9 19:35:41 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA21950 for cvs-all-outgoing; Sat, 9 Jan 1999 19:35:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from firewall.reed.wattle.id.au (darren2.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.53.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA21945 for ; Sat, 9 Jan 1999 19:35:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au) Received: (from root@localhost) by firewall.reed.wattle.id.au (8.9.1/8.8.7) id DAA12760; Sun, 10 Jan 1999 03:35:03 GMT Received: from avalon.reed.wattle.id.au(192.168.1.1) by firewall.reed.wattle.id.au via smap (V1.3) id sma012757; Sun Jan 10 03:34:42 1999 Received: from percival.reed.wattle.id.au. (percival.reed.wattle.id.au [192.168.1.5]) by avalon.reed.wattle.id.au (8.9.0.Beta3/8.9.0.Beta3) with SMTP id OAA14807; Sun, 10 Jan 1999 14:34:42 +1100 (EST) From: Darren Reed Message-Id: <199901100334.OAA14807@avalon.reed.wattle.id.au> Subject: Re: sysctl descriptions To: des@flood.ping.uio.no (Dag-Erling Smorgrav) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 14:34:41 +1100 (EST) Cc: phk@critter.freebsd.dk, des@flood.ping.uio.no, committers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Dag-Erling Smorgrav" at Jan 9, 99 08:02:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk In some email I received from Dag-Erling Smorgrav, sie wrote: > > Poul-Henning Kamp writes: > > In message <86u2y0btan.fsf@niobe.ewox.org>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav writes: > > >The attached patches implement a mechanism for retrieving a sysctl's > > >description. I haven't tested the patches yet, but they compile > > >cleanly against a fairly recent (couple of hours old) -current. > > This was deliberately not done initially, sticking goops of ascii > > in the kernel doesn't seem optimal. > > > > The intention was to have a program perambulate /sys and gather > > the stuff into a man-page or share/misc/sysctl.desc file or similar > > > OK, let's just ignore that somebody has spent time and effort to > produce actual, working, value-adding code, since we already have > vaporware which may or may not become real code some day, and may save > us from a 0.04% increaseš of the size of the kernel at the expense of > adding yet more complexity to an already burdened build system. > > > If having sysctl descriptions in the kernel really is a problem for > some people, it's trivial to add a kernel option to disable my code. Whilst I don't want to piss on you for doing this, just a couple of comments: - the kernel itself doesn't keep many descriptions, because they're meaningless. Take system errors as an example, to find out what an error string is you call strerror(). Most of the strings inside are messages sent out /dev/console or via log() or are there to inform about bootup configuration. I don't know why one would need to have sysctl descriptions "in-kernel". Maybe you could develop a libsysctl and add include interface for reading in a config file with extras or something similar. - it's always a good idea to poll for comments on features you wish to add to the kernel _before_ you start and make sure you get comments from some of those at the center or the project. At least that way you don't get to the situation of having spent months on some really cool project only to have people knock you back. Cheers, Darren p.s. it is a good idea, in general, just the implementation needs some work. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message