Messages in this thread | | | Subject | ioctl's suck? | From | Brian Beattie <> | Date | Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:54:56 -0700 |
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The other day Linus (I think) made the statement, that I don't disagree with, that I will parapharse as "ioctl's suck". If I recall correctly and understand he was saying that a device that uses ioctls is broken. (this is my paraphrase and if it offends anybody it is my fault not the original author's).
This got me to thinking about a device driver that I'm working on. Currently I have some ioctls to handle status and out of band messages and I'm wondering about eliminating the ioctls. I'm wondering if anybody has any ideas or opinions that they would like to share, about just what i wrong with ioctls and/or how to avoid them.
I can see a number of problems with ioctls that I can'tr quite put into words.
I could add a control device and pass ascii strings for status and OOB messages, would that be an improvement? -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting a bad thing?
Brian Beattie LFS12947 | "Honor isn't about making the right choices. beattie@beattie-home.net | It's about dealing with the consequences." www.beattie-home.net | -- Midori Koto
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