libifconfig: A C API for ifconfig

[Roman Bogorodskiy]

  Marie Helene Kvello-Aune wrote:

> Hey!
> 
> I'm currently working on a library called 'libifconfig' which will provide
> a C API to do the actual work that /sbin/ifconfig currently does, except
> that of lib80211. What sparked this project was a wish to simplify
> maintenance of the ifconfig program by making it primarily focus on the
> user's command line interaction, and not so much on the specifics of how
> those things are done behind the scenes.
> 
> One advantage to having such a library is to reduce code duplication  and
> thus improve maintainability, and another is that it would make it easier
> for third party programs to query the network stack without having to spawn
> ifconfig and parse its output. I'm sure there's more, but those were the
> ones at the top of my head when writing this e-mail.

Hi,

This is a great idea. It's a bit disappointing to re-implement common
stuff like getting a list of interfaces or obtaining MAC address or IP
address of the interface over and over again in third party apps.

One question that's interesting to me though: is it planned to provide
support for this lib outside of the base? I mean, if the lib will be
added in, say, 11.x, and I want to use it from my third-party
application, will it be possible to e.g. install it from ports for 9.x or
10.x so I don't have to support 2 version of the code, one that uses
libifconfig and one that e.g. parses ifconfig(8) output?

Roman Bogorodskiy
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