On Tue, Mar 09, 1999 at 02:18:21PM -0600, Brian C. Grayson wrote:
>   I got no negative responses to my query regarding /kern files,
> so I plan on adding a new file to /kern.  I've got some ideas,
> but before I do too much work, I'd appreciate any helpful
> opinions or suggestions.  I'm new to kernel stuff, so if I've
> said something blatantly wrong here, please let me know.
> Here's what I've thought up so far:

[...]

I always thought it was kind of backwards to first have the kernel
convert data to ASCII, and then later convert it back. It's nice
to have things available in ASCII for commandline use and scripts,
but I'd like to see it binary as well. For a program that wants
to, say, grovel a proc structure, it would be rather inconvenient
to have to scanf all fields, which contain lots of bitmasks and
pointers. For something like "summary" it's ok to use ASCII, I suppose,
but please do not convery everything to ASCII, or at least have
binary information available as well.

- Frank