According to Todd Whitesel:
>
>Is there any good way to get at the device ID tuples from userland?
>

If you mean by this device name and unit number then, yes, you can do
that (email me privately if you want some sample code :-) but if you
are talking locators AFIIK there is no good way of doing this.  You
_may_ be able to snarf the tuples by parsing the output from dmesg but
this relies on dmesg actually having the boot messages available for
you to parse which is not always the case.

There was some talk a while ago about defining the locator array
offsets symbolically.  It does not appear this was ever done though.
Was there a reason why?  Or was it just a lack of hands to do the job?

>Say I want to write a really cool auto-installer for xmcd/xcdplayer and
>that lot. It would be great to scan the list of tuples that were probed
>and search for matches against known CD-ROMs.
>

Sounds like an excellent idea.

-- 
Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, British Aerospace Australia
===============================================================================
  And the monks would cry unto them, "Keep the bloody noise down!"
  - Mort, Terry Pratchett.