[ Thanks to Zack
Brown for this link. ]
“Dear Lina,
You’ve probably heard this question many times, but I’ve never been
able to get a straight answer on it. What exactly are all those
numbered directories and zero-length files in the /proc
directory?…“
“Seriously, I think Linus considers /proc to be a user-oriented
— and only user-oriented interface. If you’re writing a program
that needs information in /proc, you’d be better off using a system
call to get the information you need. /proc is just a useful thingy
to check out on your own. Anything that depends upon it will
probably break at some inconvenient time in the future.”