> I don't understand why you would use a device for this which
> seems to me is just another control function. Doesn't this
> function belong in sysfs too?

To me, the distinction is between controlling the function and the transfer
of information resulting from the function, which may be a stream of
arbitrary length. Sysfs (IMHO) isn't really intended for things that can
return 16-20K responses.

You could make an argument for doing it both ways; I happen to like the
control/result separation model that Plan 9 and SysV streams use, so the
actual data and the control are separate in my mind.

BTW, this type of approach also lets languages other than C adapt easily --
think for a momment about how you would call an ioctl-based interface from
Fortran. Not a trivial problem, but I have a lot of users who care deeply
about Fortran 77.

-- db

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