On 10 Sep 2010 at 2:25, Roland McGrath wrote:

> > Brad, sorry, I have bad news. glibc sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX) is implemented
> > by hard coded RLIMIT_STACK/4 heuristics. That said, at least _now_, we
> > can't change this even though you disliked. That said, we can't break
> > userland even though userland library is very crazy.
> 
> I'm sorry you think it's "very crazy" to implement the required
> functionality in the only way available.  POSIX requires that execve
> fail with E2BIG when the ARG_MAX limit is exceeded.  sysconf has to
> return the correct actual limit that execve will enforce so that a
> conforming application knows how much it can safely attempt to use.
> Since the kernel uses the hard-coded RLIMIT_STACK/4 heuristic and does
> not expose the true manifest limit any other way, sysconf has to
> parallel the kernel's calculation.

no it doesn't have to, similarly to how it doesn't have to hardcode
_SC_PAGESIZE either, AT_PAGESZ tells userland what it needs to know
and i think AT_ARGMAX could exist just as well.