Re: What /proc should contain [was: /proc/driver/microcode]

From: Mark H. Wood (mwood@IUPUI.Edu)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 13:36:14 EST


On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Patrick Spinler wrote:
> Preface this with the obligatory "I am not a kernel hacker. If this
> message is stupid, just ignore me."

No, it's worth discussing.

> Regarding parsing /proc files, has anyone thought of a file format which
> contains a parsing specification ? For example a scanf format string.
>
> Eg:
>
> $ cat /proc/somefile
> %d %d %f %s
> 12 45 8.4 Some String

If the data are to be self-describing then we also need to know what each
one is. So:

$ cat /proc/somefile
rate limit average eventname
%d %d %f %s
12 45 8.4 Some String

But now look at that first line. Those tags must be fixed text or we get
all the same old respelling problems. So why didn't we just have

$ cat /proc/something/rate
12
$ cat /proc/something/limit
45
$ cat /proc/something/average
8.4
$ cat /proc/something/eventname
Some String

I had to know that rate, limit, and average are numbers, and average is a
float, and eventname is a string, in order to use them, so now the formats
are irrelevant.

-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood@IUPUI.Edu
"Where's the kaboom?  There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"
	 -- Marvin Martian, 01/01/2000 00:00:00

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