NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/sys/sun/admin/6129

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-03 | 1.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!eplunix!das
From: [e-mail] (David Steffens)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Slight Strangeness with ``config''
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 3 Sep 92 21:22:16 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Eaton-Peabody Lab, Boston, MA
Lines: 29

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Ian G Batten) writes:
> This works:
> config  vmunixbackup root on md0a     swap on id010b
>
> This complains about a syntax error on the ``backup'' line:
> config  vmunix.backup root on md0a     swap on id010b

This has been either a bug or a feature (depending on your point of view)
at least as far back as 4.2bsd.  Quoting from the paper "Building 4.2BSD
UNIX Systems with Config", Samuel J Leffler, June, 1983, Page 24-25:

        Appendix A. Configuration File Grammar
    The following grammmar is a compressed form of the actual yacc(1)
    grammar used by config to parse configuration files.
    ...
    System_spec ::= config ID System_parameter [ System_parameter ]*
    ...
    Lexical Conventions
    The terminal symbols are loosely defined as:
    ID    One or more alphabetics, either upper or lower case,
        and underscore, "_".

Notice that nowhere does this say that an "ID" token can contain a dot!
--
David Allan Steffens       | I believe in learning from past mistakes...
Eaton-Peabody Laboratory   | but why does a good education require so many?
Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary, 243 Charles Street, Boston, MA 02114
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