Different uses of the 5th field of the passwd file.

[John F. Haugh II]

In article <3851 at dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> williams at nssdcs.UUCP (Jim Williams) writes:
>"GCOS field.  Typically the user's complete name.  It can also contain other
>things such as a phone number, or silly comment.  In other words, it isn't
>defined.  It is called the GCOS field historically because it was originally
>used to define an accounting ID that was submitted with remote batch jobs to
>the GCOS system at Bell Labs."

I'd say that what BSD does with it is about as close a definition as
one gets.  finger(1) "knows" where the various pieces of information
all live, and I believe it is the only program anymore which cares.
The BSD chfn command will prompt for the appropriate information and
splatter it all over the password file for you.

The source to a "chfn" was posted to alt.sources a while back.  You
might try digging around an archive site somewheres.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                             UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832                           Domain: jfh at rpp386.cactus.org
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