Subject: Re: EV-64260-BP & GT64260 bi_recs

From: Murray Jensen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 12:11:05 +1100

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:51:01 -0500, Dan Malek <[email-masked]> writes:
>If we want to be passing arbitrary information into the kernel
>for anyone to use, perhaps we should consider using the standard
>argc, argv, envp, like other architectures.  Just pass ASCII
>strings into the kernel as you would any other program, and have
>a function that can search for and parse 'param=value' strings.

I like this idea (a lot), but I'm not sure you were serious. The problem with
this method starts when you have a lot of information to pass - it gets unwieldy
and becomes almost as unreadable as a hex dump (anyone ever had to read the
output from a make of the gcc compiler to decipher what went wrong? with all
those command line options passed to each invocation of the compiler, the real
information gets lost).

I don't think the method matters a lot, as long as there is only one way to do
it (that is unlimited, flexible, extensible), not the three different methods
we have today (command line, bd_t struct and bi_recs).

Oh, and for the record - I vote for b). The stuff posted by benh is a very
good start for this - I really like the idea of bi_recs within bi_recs - this
gives you effectively unlimited flexibility, but handlers at the top level can
just skip/pass the entire record without worrying about its content. Cheers!
								Murray...
--
Murray Jensen, CSIRO Manufacturing Sci & Tech,         Phone: +61 3 9662 7763
Locked Bag No. 9, Preston, Vic, 3072, Australia.         Fax: +61 3 9662 7853
Internet: [email-masked]

Hymod project: http://www.msa.cmst.csiro.au/projects/Hymod/

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