Xref: utzoo comp.bugs.4bsd:1723 comp.lang.c:35774
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Complexity of reallocating storage (was users command crap)
Message-ID: <15068@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 4 Feb 91 20:02:37 GMT
References: <5883:Feb102:05:4991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <21594@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <29778:Feb419:26:3791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Followup-To: comp.bugs.4bsd
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 9

In article <29778:Feb419:26:3791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>Now you bring in the fourth god of ``number of passes.'' Wtf are you
>talking about? The number of passes matters *only* in how it affects
>time, space, and human effort. Lots of examples bear this out.

An /etc/utmp inspector could easily be foiled is it relies on the
contents of /etc/utmp being unchanged between its first and second
passes.  It's bad enough not being able to lock the file for one
pass, but that's probably easier to cope with than a phase error.