ps and username size

[Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008, Tito wrote:

> Isn't there a maximum lenght for usernames on unix/linux?
> Would it make sense to set the width of this field to that value?

Doing so seems like the clever thing to do, though you'd run into a
columnisation problem and loose compatibility to full version of the app.

> I ask this because on my system (Ubuntu 7.10 - more or less)
> adduser  fails with usernames longer than 32 chars.
>
> Adding user `qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq' ...
> Adding new group `qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq' (1006) ...
> groupadd: qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq is not a valid group name
> adduser: `/usr/sbin/groupadd -g 1006 qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq' returned error code 3. Exiting.

32 chars seems reasonable, but display real estate seems to be a problem.
I believe truncated usernames vs. option to display user ids only seems to
be an acceptable compromise.  What do you think?


Cheers,

-- 
Cristian