Re: Querying translators

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

ogi@fmi.uni-sofia.bg (Ognyan Kulev) writes:

> fsysopts is used to _control_ translators.  But is there a design decision
> how to _query_ them?  For example, if we want statistics about pfinet
> packets.  Or each translator must include MiG procedures in its interfaces
> to allow querying such stuff?  Almost each translator can be queried for
> various statistics and this is the Hurdish /proc.

Different Unix processes do it different ways.  To query Bind, for
example, you send it various signals.  Similarly for sendmail.  Most
Unix programs don't provide such interfaces at all.  

Here's a suggestion if you want something more uniform:

Programs that want to be queryable create nodes in the filesystem and
register themselves as active translators for those files; they report
their info in response to read calls.  All that could be bundled
nicely into a completely self-contained library routine, and would
make a nice programming project for someone to write.