Re: How to increse [sic.] max open files?

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
5 Jan 1997 05:19:50 GMT


Followup to: <Pine.HPP.3.95.970103161052.25250A-100000@gapk20.rgti.com>
By author: yuri@rgti.com (yuri mironoff)
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Forgive my ignorance but why not implement dynamic file descriptor
> allocation??? All these arguments about a maximum NR_OPEN would then
> become inconsequential.
>

It ain't so easy, and it's BSD's fault. select() has a very nice way
to ensure that a bitmask of file descriptors is the right size, but
the FD_* support routines immediately bungles that very nice idea by
effectively requiring the maximum number of file descriptors
(technically, the largest possible numerical value of a file
descriptor) to be known at compile time. There is no way in C to
implement a compatible interface, and have dynamic allocation,
although it is possible in C++ by using contructors/destructors.

-hpa

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