[TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and arcane")

Kirk McKusick mckusick at mckusick.com
Tue Jun 25 12:27:20 AEST 2019


> From: ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com>
> To: TUHS main list <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and
>         arcane")
> Message-ID:
>         <CAP6exYJshbA5HxOJ_iM21Cs0Y4vGfLuFigXxh4WTeqbZreY8UA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> I always wondered who wrote this, anyone know? I have my suspicions but ...
> 
> ".SH BUGS
> .I Ptrace
> is unique and arcane; it should be replaced with a special file which
> can be opened and read and written.  The control functions could then
> be implemented with
> .IR ioctl (2)
> calls on this file.  This would be simpler to understand and have much
> higher performance."
> 
> it's interesting in the light of the later plan 9 proc interface.
> 
> ron

The manual pages were not yet under SCCS, so the best time gap that I
can give you is that the above text was added between the release of
3BSD (Nov 1979) and 4.0BSD (Nov 1980). Most likely it was Bill Joy
that made that change.

	Kirk McKusick


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