> via Stevens Bible II-ed. ;) the young lad observed that the sin_len
> field was left out in Linux implementation. While WRS make clear that is
Not exactly true sin_len was added to a years old existing standard by
BSD 4.4. Pretty much arbitarily.
> not required by Posix.1g standard and is usefull only to kernel
> routines, the young aprentice asked why and what was the reason for
> that.
Actually the kernel never needs it. There are some variable length address
formats but the kernel understands them - and has to parse them to be sure
they are legal.
> Even more, he asked if he can "take the bull by the horns" and put the
> member back in the structure without breaking something.
Not easily at all. Especially on a big endian machine. BSD had multiple
entry points for old/new format calls. Since Linux doesn't seem to gain anything
from sa_len/sin_len we didnt implement it at all.
Alan
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