Length of external names

[Paul Schauble]

A couple of months back, I was involved in a fairly active tirade about
the length of external names in the C standard. I believed then, and
still do, the the proposed standard's length of 8 characters in
inadequate. This minimum will become a maximum for anyone wanting to
write portable code.

Now, I don't want to reopen the argument here. I am very curious,
however, as to why that limit was established. The only reason I can
come up with is to accommodate limitations in somebody's linker. But
who?

The last machine I am aware of that had a short name restriction in the
linker was Honeywell's GCOS line. They now have a new linker with a 500
character limit.

I have reason to suspect that there are no current machines and
operating systems with a very short limit. Reason being the the COBOL
standard requires 30 character names, and that forced most manufacturers
to update their linkers.

So, I am asking for information. Are there any current production
machines and operating systems with a linker that will not accept 30
character external names?

By current production I mean one that is actively supported by new
software, such that one could reasonably expect it to get an ANSI C
compiler.

Please reply directly to me. I will post results in two weeks. If you
know of such a machine, please provide me my counterexample.

Thanks,
Paul
Schauble at MIT-Multics.ARPS