Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zazen!uwvax!margay.cs.wisc.edu!dws
From: dws@margay.cs.wisc.edu (DaviD W. Sanderson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Streams line disciplines (was POSIX bashing, cooked vs raw or cbreak mode)
Message-ID: <1991Apr13.042237.12478@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 91 04:22:37 GMT
References: <71479@brunix.UUCP> <1991Apr10.192226.24909@world.std.com> <1991Apr11.140508.9012@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu (The News)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 22

In article <1991Apr11.140508.9012@athena.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>  The way Multics did things was by allowing users to plug their own input
>interface library in between the terminal and whatever programs they were
>running. [...]
>  Now, I've never programmed with streams, but I was under the impression that
>it's possible to use them to do something like this.  Can't the user write a
>streams driver that does his line-editing [...]

Well, sort of.  Once installed, streams modules can be pushed and
popped by an ordinary user, but since they are linked into the kernel
they must be installed by root.  I imagine it would be possible (since
the RFS file system type does something like it) to write a special
streams module that would communicate with some specifiable user-level
process to perform the user-interface functions, but it would probably
not be worth it.
-- 
       ___
      / __\  U N S H I N E	           DaviD W. Sanderson
     |  |  | I N E			    dws@cs.wisc.edu
_____|  |  |_____  ________
\      / \   |__/ /////__	Fusion Powered Locomotives Made to Order
 \____/   \__|_/  \\\\\______	 (TARDIS model available at extra cost)