Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: 509?? (Re: Max line length)
Message-ID: <2309@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 16 Mar 89 18:32:52 GMT
References: <2102@jasper.UUCP> <207600017@s.cs.uiuc.edu> <9777@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <11005@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <648@jhereg.Jhereg.MN.ORG> <2285@buengc.BU.EDU> <9847@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 37

In article <9847@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>In article <2285@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>-John Carr and Doug Gwyn both quoted the pANS as requiring compilers to
>-accept at least 509 chars of logical line...
>-Huh???
>-Do X3J11 do their discussing ain between trips to the 7-11 to buy
>-lottery tickets or something?
>-Did they hit the trifecta at Rosemont betting 5-0-9? (probably required
>-themselves to box...:-)
>
>Please don't clutter the net with drivel.
>
>Rest assured that there were good and sufficient reasons for that
>particular number.  If you had asked politely I might even have
>explained what they were.

Please don't clutter the net with arrogant pedantry.  You could have
whined by email.

The answers I've received so far indicate that:

5 responses:  There is a 512-byte maximum record length and the characters
'\r\n\0', in various order, are the three stripped off to make the maximum-
allowable-length logical line.

This does not explain the arbitrary(?) limit on record length.

1 response:  there is a 512-byte maximum record length, apparently
imposed because one manufacturer's machines were limited to 512-byte
maximum record length, and the three excised bytes were a '\0' and
two bytes to indicate the record length.

I've asked for more info on that last one.

				--Blair
				  "Nothing I hate worse than a
				   net-narc.  Putz.  :-|"