[comp.mail.misc] Teaching pathalias about uucp name limitations?

jeff@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Stearns) (05/26/88)

I have found what looks like a design problem in pathalias.  It can create
multiple routes to the same site.  This happens when the sitename is longer
than the 7 (or 8 or even 6) characters which are significant to uucp.

For example, our pathalias output file contains two routes to site microsoft,
depending on how you spell it:
    microsoft	microsoft!%s  205
    microsof	uw-beaver!rutgers!ncar!ico!ism780c!microsof!%s  1185

(This is probably the result of one lone reference to "microsof", in the
map data file "d.usa.ca.1":
    ism780c microsof(DEMAND), microsoft(DEMAND))

One could, of course, declare pathalias aliases of the form
	microso  = microsoft
	microsof = microsoft
but the total number of these things would be large.  It would also be changing
constantly.  Is there a cleaner solution?  I wonder about teaching pathalias
the limitations of uucp names.  Or about asking map moderators to check for
this situation before posting map data.

For amusement I wrote an awk script which truncates uucp sitenames to seven
characters and then prints routes to sites which share the same name.
Following is a *partial list*.

Question: Which are simply duplicate routes to the same site and which are
actually different sites?

    cerlctt tikal!uiucuxc!ctt!cerl!cerlctta!%s      1200
    cerlctt   tikal!uiucuxc!ctt!cerl!cerlcttb!%s  1200

    cg-atla uw-beaver!rutgers!mit-eddie!ulowell!cg-atla!%s  890
    cg-atla   uw-beaver!rutgers!ncar!ico!ism780c!cg-atlas!%s  1185

    csula-p uw-beaver!rutgers!moss!ihnp4!escher!csula-pc!%s 1515
    csula-p   uw-beaver!rutgers!hplabs!csun!csula-ps!%s  1095

    estevax sun!pyramid!fauern!estevax!%s   3755
    estevax   sun!pyramid!fauern!estevax!estevaxb!%s  3780

    heimdal thebes!pilchuck!uunet!mcvax!diku!dkuug!%s       1045
    heimdal   thebes!pilchuck!uunet!munnari!heimdall.dmt.oz!%s  1199

    laserwr sun!laserwr!%s  705
    laserwr   uw-beaver!rutgers!sunybcs!decvax!decwrl!laserwrite!%s  1080

    leonard uw-beaver!rutgers!gatech!mcdchg!motmpl!leonard!%s       1490
    leonard   thebes!pilchuck!uunet!mcvax!i2unix!leonardo!%s  1520

    prometh thebes!pilchuck!uunet!mcvax!ariadne!theseas!prometheas!%s       6510
    prometh   thebes!pilchuck!uunet!vsedev!softdev!prometheus!%s  1150

    valhall thebes!pilchuck!uunet!enea!urd!valhall!%s       30009998
    valhall   sun!texsun!edsr!valhalla!%s  7266
-- 
		 Jeff Stearns
	 Domain: jeff@tc.fluke.COM
	  Voice: +1 206 356 5064
    If you must: {uw-beaver,microsoft,sun}!fluke!jeff
	   USPS: John Fluke Mfg. Co. / P.O. Box C9090 / Everett WA  98206

honey@umix.cc.umich.edu (Peter Honeyman) (05/27/88)

this is not a pathalias bug.  furthermore, at least one version of
uucp allows host names to be 14 characters long, so truncation at
seven would be a disservice.

as for microsof and similar problems, this is a "garbage-in, garbage-out"
problem.  bang on the appropriate map coordinator.

	peter