Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Identifier length?
Message-ID: <1989Mar16.171213.21210@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <627@maxim.ERBE.SE>
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 89 17:12:13 GMT

In article <627@maxim.ERBE.SE> prc@maxim.ERBE.SE (Robert Claeson) writes:
>How long can local (to the file) and external identifiers be in ANSI C?

There is no limit on identifier length.  However, implementations are
permitted to consider only the first N characters significant.  For
internal names, N must be at least 31 and upper and lower case must
be distinct.  For external names, the need to work with existing linkers
limits what ANSI can insist on:  N must be at least 6, and distinctions
of case can be ignored.  The Rationale comments:  "...strong sentiment
was expressed for making C ``right'' by requiring longer names everywhere...
This is unacceptable since the whole reason for a standard is portability,
and many systems today simply do not provide such a name space..."
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