From owner-cvs-all Sat Jan 9 23:58:13 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA15228 for cvs-all-outgoing; Sat, 9 Jan 1999 23:58:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA15222 for ; Sat, 9 Jan 1999 23:58:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA50089; Sat, 9 Jan 1999 23:53:46 -0800 (PST) To: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Darren Reed , committers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sysctl descriptions In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 10 Jan 1999 08:29:49 +0100." <19167.915953389@critter.freebsd.dk> Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 23:53:45 -0800 Message-ID: <50085.915954825@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk > Sysctl descriptions is documentation stuff. No bit of code can read > it for any other purpose than presentation as ASCII for the operator > to read. > > There is NO reason whatsoever to load it with the kernel. Next thing > you will what to stick documentation for all ioctl(2) calls into the > kernel. > > KLD's could easily stick files into: > > /usr/share/doc/sysctl/desc/this/is/my/sysctl.txt Actually, there is a legitimate syncronization issue to be dealt with here. If I have a sysctl implemented in one area of the code with a doc string that describes it, I'm going to be more inclined to stick it in the macro definition or something itself so that I have doc string and associated sysctl code together. If I have to go remember to edit a file somewhere as well, I'm going to forget just as developers have been forgetting such extraneous details for years and the problem is acute enough that entire programming paradigms (tangle/weave) have been evolved in an effort to deal with the problem. I'd sooner have a larger kernel if it meant that my doc strings had a better chance of being actually *correct*. :) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message