Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: identifiers Message-ID: <4875@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 01:40:35 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.4875 Posted: Sun Jan 6 01:40:35 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Jan-85 01:40:35 EST References: <8195@watarts.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 18 > If there is so much disagreement over how long the identifier is significant > to, why not say: > > a) That the number of characters actually stored must be at least 7. > b) The length of the whole identifier is significant. Not a bad suggestion, except that the recalcitrant object-module formats that cause the length-significance problems don't have a "real length" field available either. P.S. 7 is too big; some of them only have 6. Old Unixes are not the problem here! P.P.S. One major manufacturer only has 5, but that was going a little too far for anyone to stomach. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry