Reading VAX SID register on ultrix or 4.3bsd

[Dave Cornutt]

In article <13089 at brl-adm.ARPA> chris at mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:
 > I was not railing *against* the `get interesting kernel variable'
 > syscalls, I was railing *for* them.
 > ...
 > It would be nice, though, if it did not take a horrendous number
 > of syscall table entries to describe all the interesting kernel
 > variables; I argued for a call of the form
 > 
 > 	get_kernel_variable(int variable_index)
 > 
 > I still think this should be done.

Yep, a lot of stuff like getpagesize and getdtablesize could be
sucked up into this.  Define a bunch of indices in an include file
for naming the variables (it might be a good idea to divide them
into hardware-independent and hardware-dependent partitions, with
plenty of numbers reserved for future use in both).  You might
also want to make the syscall take a pointer to an area where
it can deposit the value, so it can return string and structure
items instead of just ints.
-- 
Dave Cornutt, AT&T Bell Labs (rm 4A406,x1088), Holmdel, NJ
UUCP:{ihnp4,allegra,cbosgd}!hotly!dkc
"The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily my employer's, not
necessarily mine, and probably not necessary"