Re: What shall we do with the GECOS field again?

From: Kevin O'Riordan <kor@compsoc.com>
Date: Sep 19, 2005, 14:11 UTC
Message-ID: <20050919141106.GA31983@compsoc.com>
In-Reply-To: <20050919134838.GC2903@pasky.or.cz>

Hi,

> [cutting] based on ',', ... might throw away the first name of gecos
> fields in the "Torvalds, Linus" name.

...

> ... a lot of them used the realname,phone,something,phone,... format.

...

> So my proposal ... is to cut everything after the first , or ; from
> the GECOS field.

...

> In the ... situation of the "Baudis, Petr"-like GECOS fields, this
> will just result in only the surname being in the realname field,
> which seems to be much less harmful and comparably less evil to me.

In case this hasn't been suggested, how about cutting on "," but taking the first and second fields instead of just the first, and then discarding the second if it contains numbers (or is empty, or whatever) ?

-kor