Finding physical memory size

[Eric Schnoebelen]

Submitted-by: schnoebe at convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen)

jgd at csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes in <16397 at cs.utexas.edu>:
-Submitted-by: jgd at csd4.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick)
-
-Our CONVEX system, which claims POSIX compliance, has a system call
-that returns "system configuration" information.

	First off, getsysinfo(2) is not a POSIX standard routine.  It
is an extension to UNIX that Convex has supported for quite some time.
It is not available in the conforming modes of the C development
environment (compiler and libraries), only the extended/backwards
compatible modes.

	The features of getsysinfo(2) are available as part of the
uname(2) call as well, as an extension to the standard uname
structure.

-One item glaringly missing is the size of physical memory installed.
-The writeup for the function claims it returns "system information", not
-"CPU information".   In my book, a "system" includes processors AND
-memory.
-
-My question, to those of you who know what happened in the
-standardization process is threefold:
-
-	a) Was memory size even considered for inclusion in the
-	   'getsysinfo' (or whatever it's really named) call.

	According to the standard, the only things that have to be
returned by uname(2) are the system (implementation) name, the node
(host) name, the release name, the version name, and the hardware type
name. See page 77, section 4.4 of the little green book.

-	c) How does one interrogate the system, in a 'standard' way,
-	   to determine physical memory size?   (My initial guess is
-	   that the answer will be "You don't.")

	Correct!.  For the Convexen, you  might try contacting the TAC,
and asking them. I seem to remember a little program that determines
just that floating around.

--
Eric Schnoebelen		eric at cirr.com		schnoebe at convex.com
	Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the
			same thing as division.

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 54