Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Wed, 7 Nov 2001 16:55:59 -0800 | From | Jonathan Lundell <> | Subject | RE: Yet another design for /proc. Or actually /kernel. |
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At 3:13 PM -0600 11/7/01, Brenneke, Matthew Jeffrey (UMR-Student) wrote: > >> - Multiple values per file when needed >>> A file is a two dimensional array: it has lines and every line >>> can consist of multiple fields. >>> A good example of this is the current /proc/mounts. >>> This can be parsed very easily in all languages. >>> No need for single-value files, that's oversimplification. >>> > >>Actually, /proc/mounts is currently broken, and is an excellent >>example of why the above statement simply isn't true unless you apply >>another level of indirection: try mounting something on a directory >>the name of which contains whitespace in any form (remember, depending >>on your setup this may be doable by an unprivileged user...)
If [tag plus] multiple values are allowed on a line, the field separation needs to be unambiguous. So quoting/escaping is required in some cases. Spaces are common enough in a value that white space maybe doesn't make a very good field separator.
Or just quote all strings (and escape quotes). Interpret values as C would, 0x for hex, "... for strings, and so on for floating point, octal, &c. Heck, you could even have typing (3UL) or casts, though that's probably going too far. -- /Jonathan Lundell. - 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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