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From: sjm@dayton.UUCP (Steven J. McDowall)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Changing sysname and nodename dynamically.
Message-ID: <223@dayton.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 19:43:50 EST
Article-I.D.: dayton.223
Posted: Tue Nov 11 19:43:50 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Nov-86 00:54:26 EST
References: <464@cdx39.UUCP> <1279@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: sjm@dayton.UUCP (Steven J. McDowall)
Organization: Dayton-Hudson Dept. Store Co.
Lines: 23

In article <1279@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> ...
>Writing to /dev/kmem is like using peek and poke in micro Basics.
>You know it works, but you know damn well that this program will not
>work on a different brand of computer.
>-- 

If (yes, a big one here :-) the programmer did it at ALL half way
carefully, then the code is almost garunteed to be portable at least
in the same family of operating systems. (Ie. sys5 to sys5, I am
not sure about BSD since I don't use it). 

SYS5 has a standard routine called nlist() (3C) which given a list
of variable names, and a unix kernel, it will return the address
offset in kmem where that variable is located. Now you can open
kmem, seek to the correct position, and update. Not as bad as
you would want us to believe, and VERY useful.

-- 
Steven J. McDowall	
Dayton-Hudson Dept. Store. Co.		UUCP: ihnp4!rosevax!dayton!sjm
700 on the Mall				ATT:  1 612 375 2816
Mpls, Mn. 55408