Xref: utzoo comp.unix.xenix:6587 comp.mail.uucp:3346
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!uqcspe!qfagus!anvil!michi
From: michi@anvil.oz (Michael Henning)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: SCO's HDB and "long" site name
Summary: rwho has the same problem
Message-ID: <573@anvil.oz>
Date: 29 Jun 89 23:11:58 GMT
References: <10034@dasys1.UUCP> <25743@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Anvil Designs Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Australia
Lines: 29

In article <25743@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
> In article <10034@dasys1.UUCP> jpr@jpradley.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes:
>
> >But this version of uucp truncates my nodename to seven bytes.
> 
> Computing in
> general, not just SCO, could use an "Itchy Hemorrhoid" award, targeted
> at programming decisions of the "no one could ever want a _____ of more
> than _____ characters" variety.
> 

Agreed.
Ever had a look at what happens to the output of "rwho" if a device name
has more than seven characters ?  The output gets totally scrambled. A good
many packages (e.g. Multiview) use device names longer than seven characters,
in which case you just have to live with the fact that rwho messes up
column alignments and reports an incorrect number of users. But, you *do*
have to consider the fact that memory is expensive, and that a good
programmer will not simply go and foolishly waste all of seven bytes. After
all, we only have a couple of million of them available, plus several million
more of virtual memory...


					Michi.
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