Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!dsacg1!dsacg3!vfm6066
From: vfm6066@dsacg3.UUCP (John A. Ebersold)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: retiring gets(3)
Message-ID: <1177@dsacg3.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 88 16:48:19 GMT
References: <1988Nov8.054845.23998@utstat.uucp> <1031@cps3xx.UUCP>
Reply-To: vfm6066@dsacg3.UUCP (John A. Ebersold)
Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus
Lines: 12

In article <1031@cps3xx.UUCP> usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) writes:
>
>This may be a naive question, or perhaps I haven't followed the right
>stories, but what is the problem with using gets versus fgets?
>

One can feed a VERY long string to gets(3), since gets will keep reading
characters until receipt of a newline and does not check for overflow of the
receiving buffer.  The VERY long string would cause a program to
malfunction is some way that is not clear to me.

Maybe overwritting the stack?