Re: [PATCH] A new entry for /proc

[Roger Luethi <rl@hellgate.ch>]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:23:39 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Mauricio Lin <mauriciolin@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Here is a new entry developed for /proc that prints for each process
> > memory area (VMA) the size of rss. The maps from original kernel is
> > able to present the virtual size for each vma, but not the physical
> > size (rss). This entry can provide an additional information for tools
> > that analyze the memory consumption. You can know the physical memory
> > size of each library used by a process and also the executable file.
> > 
> > Take a look the output:
> > # cat /proc/877/smaps
> > 08048000-08132000 r-xp  /usr/bin/xmms
> > Size:     936 kB
> > Rss:     788 kB
> 
> This is potentially quite useful.  I'd be interested in what others think of
> the idea and implementation.

With split interfaces (machine-/human-readable) as proposed a few months
ago, we wouldn't need to clutter /proc with such cruft. We could simply
add the obvious field to /proc/maps and add another field to nproc.

Using procfs for both humans and software means over time it will get
worse for _both_ sides, and switching to a saner solution won't get
cheaper, either. I still believe we should bite that bullet now.

Roger