Messages in this thread |  | | From | Daniel Phillips <> | Subject | Re: PROPOSAL: dot-proc interface [was: /proc stuff] | Date | Sun, 4 Nov 2001 20:53:39 +0100 |
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On November 4, 2001 08:46 pm, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Daniel Phillips wrote: > > > > > > The computer can parse anything. > > > > OK, then lets keep the 'current' variable in ASCII. > > Yeah, the old "argument by absurdity". > > Did you ever take logics class? It isn't a valid argument at all. > > My argument is: humans want the data they want in a readable format. What > the _hell_ does that have to do with the "current" variable?
> > > Handling spaces and newlines is easy enough - see the patches from Al > > > Viro, for example. > > > > Why are we doing this parsing in the kernel when it can be done in user > > space? > > We're not parsing anything. > > We're marshalling the data into a format that is independent of whatever > internal representation the kernel happens to have for it that particular > day. > > A representation that is valid across architectures, and a representation > that is unambiguous. A representation that various scripts can trivially > use, and a representation that is not bound by fixed-sized fields or other > idiocy. > > In short, text strings. > > They have advantages even for a computer. Fixed-size binary interfaces are > BAD for information interchange. They are bad as a word document file > format, they are bad for email, and they are bad for /proc. Get it? > > Would you prefer doc-files to be standard text, marshalled into some > logical form? Or do you prefer binary blobs of data that is limited by the > binary format? > > Linus > > - 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/
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