Weed-whacking sysctl(8)

[Oliver Fromme]

mdf at freebsd.org wrote:
 > As bde@ mentioned, there's very little actual use of the sysctl format
 > strings.  I recently changed it so the use is even smaller, but I've
 > got a quandary as to how to finish the job.
 > 
 > I agree with Bruce that the formatted structs can just be removed.

Will that break scripts that use sysctl(8) for monitoring,
logging and similar tasks (vm.loadavg for example)?

I've installed such scripts at a few customers' sites over
the past years.  It would be somewhat unfortunate if they
break when the admins at those sites decide to update the
OS.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince you to keep
the formatted output for script compatibility.  I understand
the reasons why they should be removed.  I'm just trying to
evaluate the consequences.

Best regards
   Oliver

PS:  Personally I like the format very much, because it's
easy to use in shell scripts.  For example, when you write

set $(sysctl -n vm.loadavg)

then you have the three values in $2, $3 and $4.
Another phrase I've used in scripts quite often is this:

X=$(sysctl -n kern.boottime)
echo ${X#*\}}

There are other ways to get that piece of information, but
they're more complicated and/or less efficient.


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