Re: Long-name/short-name complexity

[Ben Pfaff]

Ben Pfaff <address@hidden> writes:

> I think that there is a simple implementation model that accounts
> for the observed SPSS behavior.  Suppose every variable has a
> primary name, which is up to 64 bytes and the real name of the
> variable for all normal purposes.  Then suppose that variables
> that have been read from (or written to?) a system file also have
> a 8-byte (at most) short name that is not changed by any normal
> operation, even renaming.  When a system file is written, short
> names are assigned to any variable that doesn't have one, and any
> duplicates among those that already had short names are given new
> short names (if duplicates are possible--I'm not sure that they
> are).

I have prepared a patch that uses this model.  I will check it in
later today.
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