Messages in this thread | | | From | (Peter Benie) | Subject | Re: 2.3.16-1: 'struct sysinfo' ABI has incompatible change | Date | Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:54:16 +0100 |
| |
Michael Elizabeth Chastain writes ("2.3.16-1: 'struct sysinfo' ABI has incompatible change"): > --- v2.3.15/linux/include/linux/kernel.h Thu Aug 26 13:05:41 1999 > +++ linux/include/linux/kernel.h Thu Aug 26 12:34:55 1999 > [snip] > > This is in 'struct sysinfo', which is the argument of the obscure > 'sysinfo' call. > > Thus, 2.2 clients will give strange results on 2.4 servers; and 2.4 > clients will experience memory corruption when running on 2.2 servers.
The sysinfo interface produces strange effects anyway - you can't tell if a particular field is valid or not without using a lookup table from kernel version numbers to fields.
A version number, a set of flags or some other indicator could be added to the structure so applications tell what values the system filed in. (The caller would have to initialise the version to 0 to detect the current interface.)
Peter
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |