On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:03 PM, Cedric Blancher
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5 June 2012 09:11, Michal Hlavinka <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 06/01/2012 02:32 PM, Irek Szczesniak wrote:
>>>
>>> Michal, did anyone ever filed a bug against Linux's FIFO/PIPE
>>> implementations to support I_PEEK? As far as I can check all SystemV
>>> derivatives (including Solaris), AIX and HP/UX support I_PEEK on pipes
>>> and fifos.
>>
>>
>> I don't know if there was any official attempt. I asked a few kernel
>> developers in person and they told me that no one will bother with this.
>
> <rant>
> Michal, I recall that Redhat staff once ridiculed and mocked a patch
> (...why add extra performance support for a dead OS [Solaris] ...)
> which added support for I_PEEK to bash2 and finally convinced the
> maintainers NOT to take it. So basically this issue is blocked from
> both sides, kernel and bash, by Redhat.
> Why?
> </rant>
>
> As for an implementation in the Linux fifo kernel module, the I_PEEK
> ioctl() can be implemented along the lines of a read() syscall but
> without disposing the data which have been read. An implementation
> should therefore be very easy and should give the shells in Linux a
> SERIOUS performance advantage. I'm wondering why Redhat isn't
> interested in performance. Oh yes, see <rant />

Well, you have to see that from the management point of view:
1. bash does not use I_PEEK and therefore there is no business reason
to implement it. Performance advantage != business advantage
2. It costs two or three mandays to implement I_PEEK and another
manweek to push it to kernel.org. Who is gonna pay for that? As long
no customer pays for it and no competitor has I_PEEK and thus gains an
advantage over Redhat they won't move their butt. This is business.

Irek
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