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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!uunet!emba-news.uvm.edu!trantor.emba.uvm.edu!wollman From: wollman@trantor.emba.uvm.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Using gets() [ Was Re: nn ] Message-ID: <1993Jul18.183850.14037@uvm.edu> Sender: news@uvm.edu Organization: University of Vermont, EMBA Computer Facility References: <226q88INN56k@xs4all.hacktic.nl> <1993Jul17.203914.25267@fwi.uva.nl> <229qig$53k@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <OLEG.93Jul17185604@gd.cs.csufresno.edu> Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 18:38:50 GMT Lines: 24 In article <OLEG.93Jul17185604@gd.cs.csufresno.edu> oleg@gd.cs.CSUFresno.EDU (Oleg Kibirev) writes: >There is nothing wrong with using gets if there is no good reason for >input to be longer than some limit. Like, a response to a yes/no >question is very unlikely to be longer than 8 characters. If a user >wants to break the program, he is welcome to do so (unless it's suid >or a daemon). I would just compile nn with my own version of gets: I consider myself in good company (Henry Spencer, Richard Stallman) when I say that it is absolutely unacceptable for any program to crash on any input, whether ``reasonable'' or not. Thus, I don't use gets, and I tell other people that they shouldn't use it, either. I pine for the lack of a snprintf() in the Standard, and the presence of gets(). I seriously consider `ar d /usr/lib/libc.a gets.o'. Therefore, I will state again: any new program which uses gets() is simply and flatly /wrong/. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. uvm-gen!wollman | It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people UVM disagrees. | who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant