Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!zorba!dtynan
From: larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix
Subject: Re: An idea probably discarded many times
Message-ID: <3495@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Date: 14 Oct 89 22:35:14 GMT
References: <3481@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Sender: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM
Organization: CENTEL Federal Systems, Reston, VA. 22091-1506
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Approved: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM

> why aren't processes treated the same way?  I think it would be a nice
> addition to Unix to have a virtual '/proc' directory mounted in the file
> system.  Doing a 'ls -l' might reveal something like:
> 
> total 5
> prwxrwx---  1 rg            581 Sep 18 13:36 a.out*
> prwxrw-rw-  1 daemon       4736 Sep  5 16:56 huntd*
> prwx------  1 root         2293 Sep 18 13:37 who*
> etc.
> 
> -Roger

I'm no wizard Roger but it seems to me that updating the process
table in memory would be alot faster then the system calls needed
to create an entry in the file system and directory needed only
to post some inode information that is already available in the
process tables. (whew!)

ie, your imposing alot of overhead for nothing.

Processes in Unix are alot like files though, they have user and
group permissions just like files.

Hope this helps...