Re: LANANA: To Pending Device Number Registrants

Richard Gooch
2001-05-16T20:45:32Z

Linus Torvalds writes:
>
> On Wed, 16 May 2001, Richard Gooch wrote:
> > >
> > > This is still a really bad idea. You don't want to tie this kind of
> > > things to the name.
> >
> > Why do you think it's a bad idea?
>
> Well, one reason names are bad is that they don't always exist.
>
> If you only have the fd (remember that unix notion of using <stdin>
> and <stdout>), you'd have no clue where the thing came from. So
> something else than the name is certainly a good idea for some of
> these issues.

But, as I described in my original message, you use /proc/self/fd to
find where the fd came from. Or are you saying that you can't rely on
having /proc available?

Or do you have other reasons not to like the scheme I described? One
of the reasons I like it is because it requires no new kernel code.

> That said, I still think the real problem is rampant use of ioctl's,
> which are a bad idea in the first place. Magic numbers are always
> bad, and are a sign of bad design.

No argument from me.

Regards,

Richard....
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