[BIKESHED] Giving abort(2) a reason

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <20040912.152047.16265436.imp at bsdimp.com>, "M. Warner Losh" writes:
>In message: <61109.1095023635 at critter.freebsd.dk>
>            "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> writes:
>: In message <20040912.142552.83283958.imp at bsdimp.com>, "M. Warner Losh" writes:
>: 
>: >: Given that we are usually pretty stumped when we get to call abort(2)
>: >: it needs to work without malloc or anything like it and varargs into
>: >: the kernel is not at all in my future.
>: >
>: >Only in malloc.  Everywhere else, people have enough state to cope.
>: >Do we really want to have another kernel API just to support malloc
>: >failures?
>: 
>: Well, the problem is that practically nothing else works once malloc
>: fails, and people seem to find the lack of visible explanation a
>: problem.
>: 
>: syslog() or anything else using varargs is not going to work...
>
>Wouldn't it be better to have a more generic 'Put this into dmesg'
>thing that doesn't require malloc to work?  It seems silly to bloat
>the kernel for only a malloc failure case...

That is what I thought I proposed...

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.