extern identifier length

[Moderator, John Quarterman]

From: gwyn at brl.arpa (VLD/VMB) (Douglas A. Gwyn)
Date:     Mon, 3 Nov 86 11:42:19 EST

Neil Webber asked why POSIX does not suffer from the constraint that
led X3J11 to reluctantly require only 6-character monocase extern
identifier uniqueness.  I think the basic answer is that POSIX is
intended to be a UNIX, or UNIX look-alike, interface standard, and
that "layered" implementations on top of other operating systems,
while not precluded by POSIX, are not specifically catered to.
Thus, a much narrower class of operating system linkers and object
module formats is involved, and it is felt that those few that don't
already support long extern identifiers can be changed to do so,
since the POSIX implementors on such systems are in a position to
accomplish this (unlike implementors of many layered systems).

Volume-Number: Volume 8, Number 30