Hello Linus, Alan, David,
	To make the API orthogonal, I have included a patch for SIOCGIFCOUNT,
which currently returns -EINVAL. The only reason I am providing this patch
is to make the API complete and make it easier to port applications from
other UNIX like OS'es.

I have verified and am sure that this patch works. The priority of this patch
is not very high, but it would be good to have a orthogonal/complete API.

The patch is against 2.4.2-2 (official rh 7.1). I can provide one against 2.4.10
or 2.4.10-pre16 if required.

--- dev.c.org   Tue Oct  9 18:46:01 2001
+++ dev.c       Tue Oct  9 18:36:39 2001
@@ -1651,6 +1651,40 @@
 }

 /*
+ * Implement the SIOCGIFCOUNT, ioctl to keep the API orthogonal.
+ * Basically taken from dev_ifconf - Balbir
+ */
+static int dev_ifcount(char *arg)
+{
+       struct net_device *dev;
+       int i;
+       unsigned int total;
+
+       total = 0;
+       /*
+        * May be introducing something like for_each_netdev(dev)
+        * on the lines of for_each_pci_dev would be useful here.
+        */
+       for (dev = dev_base; dev != NULL; dev = dev->next) {
+               for (i = 0; i < NPROTO; i++) {
+                       if (gifconf_list[i]) {
+                               int done;
+
+                               done = gifconf_list[i](dev, NULL, 0);
+                               if (done < 0)
+                                       return -EFAULT;
+                               total++;
+                       }
+               }
+       }
+
+       if (copy_to_user(arg, &total, sizeof(int)))
+               return -EFAULT;
+
+       return 0;
+}
+
+/*
  *     This is invoked by the /proc filesystem handler to display a device
  *     in detail.
  */
@@ -2218,6 +2252,18 @@
                rtnl_shunlock();
                return ret;
        }
+
+       /*
+        * We do not need an exclusive lock for returning the count,
+        * shared lock is fine with us.
+        */
+       if (cmd == SIOCGIFCOUNT) {
+               rtnl_shlock();
+               ret = dev_ifcount((char *)arg);
+               rtnl_shunlock();
+               return ret;
+       }
+
        if (cmd == SIOCGIFNAME) {
                return dev_ifname((struct ifreq *)arg);
        }

Comments, rejections, etc
Balbir