Re: misc/58515 (struct acct at acct(5) man page is different from /usr/include/sys/acct.h)

["Robert Elz via gnats" <gnats-admin%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/58515; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
To: matthew green <mrg%eterna23.net@localhost>
Cc: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost, christos%NetBSD.org@localhost, misc-bug-people%netbsd.org@localhost,
        netbsd-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost, riastradh%NetBSD.org@localhost, hashikaw%mail.ru@localhost
Subject: Re: misc/58515 (struct acct at acct(5) man page is different from /usr/include/sys/acct.h)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:35:04 +0700

     Date:        Wed, 09 Oct 2024 15:51:40 +1100
     From:        matthew green <mrg%eterna23.net@localhost>
     Message-ID:  <20001.1728449500%splode.eterna23.net@localhost>
 
   | i've been meaning to say... acct(5) was affected in netbsd 6.x
   | and beyond, as the size of time_t *and* dev_t members grew, but
   | there is no compat code etc:
 
 There doesn't really need to be, with the caveat that when switching
 between kernels with different versions, the (I think just 2) userland
 utilities that deal with these things (sa(8), and lastcomm(1)) need to be
 updated as well, and all the old files need to be cleared (or turned
 into text) - ie: /var/account/* .
 
 It isn't really much of a hardship.   There's no defined API to access
 any of this that needs to be versioned.
 
   | if we're gonna consider fixing this, i'd consider doing it as
   | part of an 3rd change that bumped the sizes of various things
   | that are kinda limited in 2024 (vs 1984):
 
   | limited in both ways:
   |
   | - *tiny* cpu time is far more possible now
   | - *massive threaded* cpu time is far more possible now.
 
 They are indeed - unfortunately, the number of commands that can complete
 per second is also far more now than in 1979 (which is when I think this
 actually originated, as much as it might be nice to consider it a 1984
 effect) which means that the file grows much much faster than it did then,
 and increasing the size of each entry will make that much worse.
 
 It isn't an easy decision to make.
 
 kre