> I'd like to go down on the record as disagreeing with returning
> EISDIR on directory read(2)

Me too, at least when the directory is local.

I'm really writing to respond to

> Locally, opendir(3) and readdir(3) are just magic wrappers around
> open(2) and read(2).

Are they?  I thought they were wrappers around getdents().  That's
certainly what the code in lib/libc/gen/ looks like to me.

> To me, as a programmer, this makes perfect sense.  getdents(2)
> *almost* strikes me as more of a hack than opendir(3) and readdir(3).
> Almost.

getdents is really necessary to present a uniform view of directory
entries across multiple filesystem types; userland code - even libc -
cannot be expected to know all about all possible directory formats,
especially remote ones on foreign OSes - VMS, for example.

> If you're going to return EISDIR, wouldn't you be doing that on the
> open(2), not the read(2)?

Yes...except that then we need a "open for fchdir/fstat/etc" method of
some sort.

> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Quite.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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