Bug in System V C compiler

[Douglas H. Price]

I've watched the assorted flaming about the supposed bug in the
System V C compiler with some amusement.  I suggest, however, that
it more appropriately belongs in either net.lang.c or better yet
net.flame, since this is a case of what you want it to do rather
than what it currently does.

It clearly states on page 179 of K & R (reference section 2.2) that
in the K & R definition of C that no more than the first eight
characters are significant, with the possibility that various local
assemblers and loaders might put additional restrictions on externals.
In fact, it explicitly states that only seven chars are significant on
a PDP-11, the parent compiler to the VAX.

So, what you are really arguing about is not a bug in the compiler, but
rather an arbitrary limitation of the assembler and loader on the machine.
As a note to you who are implementing what you intend to be fully portable
code; you have even tighter restrictions.  The only way you can have
moderate assurance that the program will link on non-UNIX systems is if
you limit your externals to six characters, upper case only.  It looks
ugly, but it works.

It just so happens that longer externs will be supported in System V.2
so this whole argument will soon be moot anyway.
-- 
						Douglas H. Price
						Analysts International Corp.
						@ AT&T Bell Laboratories
						..!ihnp4!ihnp3!dhp