Re: [Findutils-patches] added new xargs option -G, --load-limit

[Eric Blake]

On 08/22/2017 09:56 AM, Sven C. Dack wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm sending you a patch, which adds load limiting to the xargs command.
> The option is '-G <max-load>' or '--load-limit <max-load>'.

Do we want to burn a short option letter before we know how widely the
option will be used? It's more conservative to introduce only the
long-option form, to avoid burning too many short option letters on
stuff that is infrequently useful.  This is particularly true if...

> 
> The implementation of the option relies on /proc/loadavg as found on
> Linux systems. It reads the number of active threads and processes from
> the file (the 4th value) before the executing a new command. Note, this
> is not the same as using the load averages. This value is updated by the
> kernel in real-time and represents the number of currently active,
> running threads and processes. Thus the option is only supported for
> Linux or on systems with a similar /proc/loadavg file.

...you cannot support it everywhere.

I have not looked at the patch itself, but note that it is non-trivial
in size.  Therefore, to be accepted upstream, you will have to sign
copyright assignment papers with the FSF.  If that is something you are
interested in doing, we can give you more details on that process off-list.

-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org

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