From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 22:21:26 +0200 From: toon@vdpas.hobby.nl Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] Writing forward compatible applications using /proc Message-ID: <20010812222126.A2247@vdpas.hobby.nl> References: <20010811235718.A20414@linux.com> <20010812135402.A452@dardhal.mired.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20010812135402.A452@dardhal.mired.net>; from jdomingo@internautas.org on Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 01:54:02PM +0000 Sender: linux-lvm-admin@sistina.com Errors-To: linux-lvm-admin@sistina.com Reply-To: linux-lvm@sistina.com List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" To: linux-lvm@sistina.com On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 01:54:02PM +0000, Jos� Luis Domingo L�pez wrote: > On Saturday, 11 August 2001, at 23:57:18 -0400, Jason Tackaberry wrote: > > > [...] > > I am curious if it's a silly idea to write an application that relies on > > the data in /proc? Do the kernel developers attempt to keep the data > > and format provided in /proc as stable as possible? Or is it fair game > > for trivial changes that could break applications that parse it? Should > > I use ioctl instead? > > > As far as I know, there are plans to remove much of the thingss that > currently appear under /proc. It seems that only information about > processes currently running will remain under /proc. > > Kernel parameters, system information, kernel variables and kernel > tunables will probably disappear and will be replaced by some sort of > user-space application that will allow query and modfication of kernel > values and tunables. Something similar to Solaris' ndd, AFAIK. Are you sure about the /proc filesystem disappearing? Linus Torvalds likes it much more than ioctl's, as far as I know. Besides, the story about the user-space application doesn't sound very realistically to me. I advise you to ask the question about the future of the /proc filesystem on the linux-kernel mailing list. Regards, Toon.