Hi,
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 03:03:34PM +0100, Steve Dodd wrote:
>
> Is there a good reason why the files in /proc aren't fifos -- at least all
> those which don't have normal seek() semantics? I'm sure it's been suggested
> before, and I guess there must have been objections..
Because you can lseek() on them (or at least on a lot of them). In
particular, it is legal to seek to the start of a /proc file for pretty
much any part of proc, and that is a lot cheaper than closing and
reopening the file if you want to reread the same information multiple
times. For /proc files which grow larger than 4K, the lseek file
offset is used as the mechanism for allowing the information in proc
to be returned over multiple reads, and again, you can seek back to
any of those positions quite legally.
--Stephen
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