From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Bill Fink Subject: Re: ip route show shows the routes in the inverse order? Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:30:21 -0400 Message-ID: <20120314013021.4c73af0d.billfink@mindspring.com> References: <20120312193204.5be5b4b8@nehalam.linuxnetplumber.net> <20120313021529.97514922.billfink@mindspring.com> <20120312.235234.73408595516828250.davem@davemloft.net> <4F5F69C6.7000900@candelatech.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: David Miller , shemminger@vyatta.com, diego@woitasen.com.ar, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: Ben Greear Return-path: Received: from elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net ([209.86.89.70]:41650 "EHLO elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754018Ab2CNFbA (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:31:00 -0400 In-Reply-To: <4F5F69C6.7000900@candelatech.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Tue, 13 Mar 2012, Ben Greear wrote: > On 03/12/2012 11:52 PM, David Miller wrote: > > From: Bill Fink > > Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:15:29 -0400 > > > >> Some scripts may depend on this plus its much more efficent that way > >> if trying to find a matching route since you can quit on the first > >> match instead of having to scan the entire routing table. > > > > No script should be doing stuff like this, let the tool do it for you > > via "ip route get ADDR" > > > > There is absolutely no argument for routes to be listed in one order > > or another, and anything depending upon order is extremely fragile > > and needs to be fixed up anyways. > > The argument is ease of use by whatever human is reading the > information..but it could be done in the 'ip' tool. > > Humans are fragile indeed, but it's often easier to fix the > computer than fix the humans. Speaking from experience, it's a royal point to look at unsorted routes. Perhaps it would be useful to add a sort option to the "ip route show" command. It makes more sense to fix a single user tool like "ip" than make hundreds (or thousands) of admins work around the new behavior. -Bill