Comparing resources

To give an idea of what resource advantage such a dedicated proc interface may provide here is a (somewhat unfair) comparison between standard top and a /proc/top.

• top - libncurses 289k stripped
• top - file system size 350k (54k /usr/bin/top + 298k for the libs)
• top - number of system calls is approximately 1500 to produce a single page of output

• proc_top - no libs
• proc_top - file system size 2k (2028 bytes on linux-2.4.20)
• proc_top - number of system calls 43 (one more than echo takes)

From this comparison it seems fairly clear that at least in some areas building dedicated /proc interface for embedded systems really can pay-off the effort invested.