user name in /etc/passwd GCOS field

[PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu]

"Douglas B. Jones"<seismo!gatech!dcc1!douglas>   writes:
>In article <1361 at lznv.ATT.COM> psc at lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
>>Some >members of another group in the area have suggested ending before the
>>first parenthesis, but stripping off everything before (and including)
>>a hyphen.  Either way, a system-wide parameter would control whether
>>mail would use this legible name.
>>Since these (optional) changes are intended for the UNIX System V
>>Release 4 implementation of /bin/mail, I'd greatly appreciate your
>>comments.
>>-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
>>AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc at lznv.att.com
>>I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.
>
>I would not use a hyphen (-) as a delimiter. Some names have hyphens in
>them. Possibly some foreign names. In the case of a female who gets married;
>she might take her husbands' last name and her last name, combine them with
>a hyphen between the two. I HAVE seen this!

On our experimental system(Silicon Mountain)
we have a number of 'pseudo-users' who don't don't have any real users.
Some are created to be targets for mail(postmaster, bbs, news, ...)
or for a secure but helpful login system (guest,a,anon,...),
or just to make the state of the machine visible to users
   (when unattended 'nobody' is at the console, if attended, 'sysop' is there).

I have used the GCOS field as a way to explain what these mean. The
syntax clearly doesn't fit any normal pattern.

Add this to previous comments and it is clear that a GCOS parser will have
to be moderately intelligent or somewhat flaky, or even both....
..I think I'll use it as an example in my System Programming class.

Dick Botting (doc-dick)
paaaaar at calstate.bitnet
PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Comp Sci, CSUSB, 5500 State Univ Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407
(714)887-7368(voice), (714)887-7365(modem->Silicon Mountain)
Disclaimer: My employer refuses to even admit that the hardware exists so
            doesn't even have any idea about this message.

PS. About 10 years ago in the UK a got a form with a name that had an at-sign
    '@' in the middle.