I think you are correct. Create(2) is a system call. Linkage editors those days were rather primitive. I think the name limit was either 7 or 8, but external names in C were many times autoprefixed with __, such that creat became __creat. The C language had a limit of 8 characters for a variable name (K&R 2.1). (Actually a name could be longer, but only the first 8 were significant). I think the only other programmer on this list who might have been writing C back then is my granduncle, Alex Hewitt ;-)
On 20 Aug 2002 at 16:43, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I believe it was Ken Thompson, and I believe the remark was intended to be > humorous. Step back and ask: Why would he spell "create" as "creat" in the > first place? If you are going to type five characters, you might as well > type six. The reason it was spelled "creat" in the first place was the > linked only supported five characters. That has caused much > head-scratching, question-asking, and recompiling-due-to-typos; hence the > remark about the spelling. -- Jerry Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Associate Director Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
