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From: jgy@hropus.UUCP (John Young)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Destroying arguments
Message-ID: <1056@hropus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-May-87 16:43:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hropus.1056
Posted: Fri May 22 16:43:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 17:35:08 EDT
References: <292@osupyr.UUCP> <239@polyof.UUCP> <485@bene.UUCP> <6723@mimsy.UUCP> <1042@hropus.UUCP> <19526@sun.uucp>
Distribution: comp.unix.questions
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 25

>> b)	On a PAGING system ONLY the first 40 bytes of arguments are copied
>> into the saftey of the user block (ps may not show you much more
>> than this anyway) so if you want arguments passed to you with some
>> secrecy just put them futher down the line.
>
>Funny, the source we have says 80 bytes....
>
>And as for "put them further down the line", *who* is doing the
>putting?  If a program wants arguments passed to it with some
>secrecy, it has to politely request that whoever or whatever
>*invokes* it should ensure that the argument in question appear more
>than 80 characters into the argument list.  A program (or programmer)
>that made such a request of me would be likely to get a rude gesture
>in response.
>

Seems to me that if you wanted to pass an argument "safely" to a
process, and knew how to, you would do it the way
I suggested.  If you do not want secrecy or wanted to spite
yourself for the inconvenience
(maybe you don't have auto repeat on your keyboard) then you would not.
Or maybe you'd just wall the argument around the system.


	jgy