[ On Wednesday, September 11, 2002 at 14:26:02 (+0900), T.SHIOZAKI wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: finger
>
> OK, I suggest a solution:
>   - finger(1) never use ISO C locale system when it is called from fingerd.
>     Administrators can choose the one of two modes:
>       - ASCII only (default)
>       - 0x20-0xFF through (-8)

I think 'fingerd' should ask 'finger' to be binary transparent, not just
to pass non-controls.  However I'm not sure if that's necessary to allow
for passing text from, say, ~/.plan that might be in any valid known
encoding, multi-byte or not.

But yes, that's more or less what I had in mind.  Fingerd(8) can arrange
to have finger(1) use the default POSIX "C" locale, and I would say it
should always invoke it with the '-8' option if that's how binary
transparency is to be enabled.

>   - standalone finger(1) can working the one of three modes:
>       - ASCII only (default)
>       - use ISO C locale for single byte locales (-i)
>       - 0x20-0xFF through (-8)
> 
> Comments?

I see no reason for the ASCII-only mode.  NetBSD is not really
ASCII-only in any way any more.  If I'm not mistaken all the locales
that NetBSD can support using 8-bit characters are "safe" in terms of
not having any clashes between printable and controls even if the
terminal is ASCII-only.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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