Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:34:12 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:34:03 -0500 Received: from unthought.net ([212.97.129.24]:31448 "HELO mail.unthought.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:33:56 -0500 Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 16:33:54 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jakob_=D8stergaard?= To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: Daniel Kobras , Tim Jansen Subject: PROPOSAL: dot-proc interface [was: /proc stuff] Message-ID: <20011104163354.C14001@unthought.net> Mail-Followup-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jakob_=D8stergaard?= , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Daniel Kobras , Tim Jansen In-Reply-To: <160MMf-1ptGtMC@fmrl05.sul.t-online.com> <20011104143631.B1162@pelks01.extern.uni-tuebingen.de> <160Nyq-2ACgt6C@fmrl07.sul.t-online.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <160Nyq-2ACgt6C@fmrl07.sul.t-online.com>; from tim@tjansen.de on Sun, Nov 04, 2001 at 03:13:37PM +0100 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Here's my stab at the problems - please comment, We want to avoid these problems: 1) It is hard to parse (some) /proc files from userspace 2) As /proc files change, parsers must be changed in userspace Still, we want to keep on offering 3) Human readable /proc files with some amount of pretty-printing 4) A /proc fs that can be changed as the kernel needs those changes Taking care of (3) and (4): Maintaining the current /proc files is very simple, and it offers the system administrator a lot of functionality that isn't reasonable to take away now. * They should stay in a form close to the current one * Taking care of (1) and (2): For each file "f" in /proc, there will be a ".f" file which is a machine-readable version of "f", with the difference that it may contain extra information that one may not want to present to the user in "f". The dot-proc file is basically a binary encoding of Lisp (or XML), e.g. it is a list of elements, wherein an element can itself be a list (or a character string, or a host-native numeric type. Thus, (key,value) pairs and lists thereof are possible, as well as tree structures etc. All data types are stored in the architecture-native format, and a simple library should be sufficient to parse any dot-proc file. So, we need a small change in procfs that does not in any way break compatibility - and we need a few lines of C under LGPL to interface with it. Tell me what you think - It is possible that I could do this (or something close) in the near future, unless someone shows me the problem with the approach. Thank you, -- ................................................................ : jakob@unthought.net : And I see the elder races, : :.........................: putrid forms of man : : Jakob ?stergaard : See him rise and claim the earth, : : OZ9ABN : his downfall is at hand. : :.........................:............{Konkhra}...............: - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/