the high kernel calls into a protocol stack to perform requests on the
user's behalf. We replace the pr_usrreq() entry in struct protosw with a
pointer to a structure containing pointers to functions which implement
the various reuqests; each function is declared with the correct type and
number of arguments. (This is unlike the current scheme in which a quarter
of the requests take arguments of type other than (struct mbuf *) and the
difference is papered over with casts.) There are a few benefits to this
new scheme:
1) Arguments are passed with their correct types, and null-pointer dummies
are no longer necessary.
2) There should be slightly better caching effects from eliminating
the prximity to extraneous code and th switch in pr_usrreq().
3) It becomes much easier to change the types of the arguments to something
other than `struct mbuf *' (e.g.,pushing the work of sosend() into
the protocol as advocated by Van Jacobson).
There is one principal drawback: existing protocol stacks need to
be modified. This is alleviated by compatibility code in
uipc_socket2.c and uipc_domain.c which emulates the new interface
in terms of the old and vice versa.
This idea is not original to me. I read about what Jacobson did
in one of his papers and have tried to implement the first steps
towards something like that here. Much work remains to be done.
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