bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) (01/05/89)
The buildfname() function in fullname.c (used (indirectly) by, e.g., inews) looks in the gecos field to try to figure out a user's full name. The comments in the code say it was lifted from sendmail, but there is a difference. If the name part of the gecos field contains a hyphen, the full name is stripped of everything to the left of the hyphen. (sendmail's buildfname() doesn't do this.) Thus articles by a user such as "Firstname Lastname-Hyphenated" get posted as being from just "Hyphenated". What is the function of this behavior? Paul DuBois bin@primate.wisc.edu dubois@primate.wisc.edu
karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (01/06/89)
bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) writes:
The comments in the code say it was lifted from sendmail, but
there is a difference. If the name part of the gecos field contains a
hyphen, the full name is stripped of everything to the left of the
hyphen. (sendmail's buildfname() doesn't do this.) Thus articles by a
user such as "Firstname Lastname-Hyphenated" get posted as being from
just "Hyphenated".
That is to accommodate the SysVish habit of having the gecos field be
some set of digits (representing, e.g., departmental affiliation),
followed by a dash and the real name. In particular, the canned
administrative accounts on SysV machines always come with
"0000-something" in the gecos field. E.g., root is frequently found
to be
root:abcefghijklm:0:0:0000-Admin:/:
and hence, the left-of-dash stripping is necessary there.
It might be possible for a better heuristic to determine if it's
really SysVish as opposed to a true hyphenated name (looking for
digits would be a good start), but the generalization as it currently
stands is fairly appropriate.
--Karljhc@att.ATT.COM (Jonathan Hawbrook-Clark) (01/06/89)
In article <KARL.89Jan5131728@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: > >It might be possible for a better heuristic to determine if it's >really SysVish as opposed to a true hyphenated name (looking for >digits would be a good start), but the generalization as it currently >stands is fairly appropriate. I modified the appropriate bit of my smail to read as attached, this handles the System V habit of making the GCOS field look like "12345-A. N. Other(foo)bar", and also handles this case: "12345-Jonathan Hawbrook-Clark". The test sees whether the character before the hyphen is alphabetic - if it is then it assumes that the hyphen is part of a name, otherwise not. Anyone got a better test? Jonathan Clark jonathan@mtune.att.com, attmail!jonathan Any affiliation is given for identification purposes only. The Englishman never enjoys himself except for some noble purpose. -- if ((cend = index(fname, '-')) && !isalpha(cend[-1])) /* * USG name format: name between between '-' and '(' * Note that this now does hyphenated names properly. */ return (++cend); else /* * v7/BSD format: name first thing in field */ return (fname); }
anw@nott-cs.UUCP (01/10/89)
In article <111@indri.primate.wisc.edu> bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) writes: > [...] Thus articles by a >user such as "Firstname Lastname-Hyphenated" get posted as being from >just "Hyphenated". He's lucky. On this system, the "gecos" field is occupied by such interesting info as disc quotas and priorities. Hence my name is apparently "4". I dread to think what my less important [:-)] brethren and cistern are apparently called. [Yes, I know how to cure the problem, but life's too short.] -- Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK. anw@maths.nott.ac.uk