>>>>> On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 09:33:38 +1100,
>>>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>> Thanks for the feedback. Was there ever any discussion in the IPv6
>> working group in regards to creating a standard set of ioctl() function
>> calls, similar to the SIOCGIFaaa ioctls, the could either be used wit IPv6
>> interfaces, or which could be used with both IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces
>> (i.e., version-neutral)?
> Not that I can remember. Some have getifaddrs(3). Which is
> a little higher.
I've always been hoping that getifaddrs(3) is officially standardized
and deployed. Aside from the portability issue, SIOCGIFxxx ioctl has
many pitfalls for application programmers. To name a few:
- buffer size estimation and try-and-error
- OS/architecture dependent alignment
- consideration for the existence (or non-existence) of the sa_len
member (to advance the pointer in the buffer correctly)
Many applications I've seen have fallen into some of the pits. Other
OS-dependent low-layer interfaces like SIOCGIFxxx have similar
pitfalls.
getifaddrs(3) solves all the problems. If we can widely deploy a
high-level interface like this one, it would help application
programmers very much and make applications more accurate and robust.
(Of course, OS vendors will still need to deal with low-level
interfaces to implement the library)
I know the IETF isn't the most appropriate place to discuss this type
of thing, but does it help to write a short informational I-D
describing the specification with some recommendation?
JINMEI, Tatuya
Communication Platform Lab.
Corporate R&D Center, Toshiba Corp.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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