Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: tbl bug + fix
Message-ID: <19@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 88 00:54:26 GMT
References: <338@physiol.su.oz> <1988Oct14.171436.2063@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 13

>>tbl will dump core if given a long (>256) input line for a text block...
>
>Tbl has numerous problems with excessively long lines or fields.  There
>is no quick, simple fix; a major overhaul is required.

Well, it depends.  "tbl" was changed in some SunOS release, with a non-major
overhaul, not to drop core in at least some of those situations; this
does not completely eliminate the problems, though - it just makes "tbl"
report them somewhat more politely.  (I presume the "major overhaul"
would be to fix it to handle long lines or fields, not just complain
about them.)  If I remember correctly, a number of procedure calls were
changed to take buffer-length arguments, but this was not really a major
overhaul.