[ On Wednesday, March 10, 1999 at 15:54:03 (+0100), Frank van der Linden wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: RFC: /kern/summary
>
> 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.

It is obviously extra overhead, but in my experience it's also less
prone to breaking when things change subtly (and is far less difficult
to maintain backwards and forwards compatibility -- i.e. you shouldn't
have to recompile and re-install libkvm or all the code using ioctl()
just because someone added a new structure member so long as the
existing functionality and structure members are not taken away or
changed drastically).

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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