From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755860AbYDJASr (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Apr 2008 20:18:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753919AbYDJASi (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Apr 2008 20:18:38 -0400 Received: from netops-testserver-3-out.sgi.com ([192.48.171.28]:45272 "EHLO relay.sgi.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753244AbYDJASh (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Apr 2008 20:18:37 -0400 Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 19:18:33 -0500 From: Paul Jackson To: Mike Travis Cc: gregkh@suse.de, bert.wesarg@googlemail.com, mingo@elte.hu, tglx@linutronix.de, hpa@zytor.com, akpm@linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] x86: add cpus_scnprintf function v3 Message-Id: <20080409191833.38cc13e3.pj@sgi.com> In-Reply-To: <47FD2E3B.5010801@sgi.com> References: <20080408184301.651388000@polaris-admin.engr.sgi.com> <36ca99e90804091051k7c2cc97neba0ca1967625433@mail.gmail.com> <20080409203909.GA17183@suse.de> <47FD2E3B.5010801@sgi.com> Organization: SGI X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.4 (GTK+ 2.12.0; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Mike wrote: > Btw, where does one value per file come from? I see outputs like: > ... /proc/self/stat The one value per file rule comes in part from files such as this stat file. We've been learning the hard way that complex ascii file formats tend to be a pain to parse, and a pain to evolve. So we're trying to do better in future files. Greg K-H has been especially clear on the need to do this in /sys files. We can't change the format of old files very well, but we can do better with new files we add. The one most common exception to this rule that I find persuasive is for a vector of values of the same type and semantics. -- I won't rest till it's the best ... Programmer, Linux Scalability Paul Jackson 1.940.382.4214