the gnu id and groups procedures

[Brocci, R. A.]

To GNU or the id, groups maintainer(s),
 
I propose that the -s/--sort string be an acceptable option to both
procedures, as in your default id -Gns command in the groups(.sh)
procedure. Personally, I'm only interested in an ascending (e.g., [Aa]
to [Zz]) sort, but perhaps this position should be reconsidered.
 
Right now, I'm typically piping the groups sysout to [g]awk and using
its intrinsic asort function.
 
Or, if I'm feeling "really adventurous," I will do `groups | awk_to_file
| sort -[r] | awk_file_to_string` instead. That is, I'll use my own
myGroups.sh procedure which is a revision of your procedure, and which
currently implements the sort via the --asrt or --rsrt options. (I've
given myGroups.sh to some colleagues who have said they like it. But, I
have no idea how often they actually use it.)
 
So, given that myGroups.sh does what I want, why am I suggesting that
"-s/--sort" be supported options for id and groups? Simply because my
procedure is not a system-level procedure -- and I fully recognize that
you may not consider this to be a sufficient argument. (Or, perhaps you
feel there is no reason to perform the sort in the id procedure itself.)
 
Finally, our systems personnel tell me that I can belong to a maximum of
16 groups, and that things are sometimes flaky if I'm in only 14 or 15.
Can you offer any insight on the "accuracy/meaningfulness" of  their
words? (Any speculation on your part would be welcome information.)
 
Taking them at their word, what might be the system impact of having the
maximum number of groups set to an absurd size, as in the illustrative
 
    #define MAX_GROUP_SIZE  256
 
statement being appropriately placed in some .h file?  Again, any
speculation could be of value to the systems people.
 
And, is there a limit on the number of groups that can exist? (I can't
find anyone here who can give a definitive answer to this question.)
 
Note: From a "calibration" point of view, our newest Linux OS (from
SuSE) has version 5.93 of id and groups, and it is difficult at best to
get our systems personnel to download a newer/better version, and then
do a rebuild, etc. (It is version 5.2.1 on our older Linux OS machines.
And, our oldest (vendor-specific Unix OS) machines are old enough to not
support the --help and/or --version options.) 
 
Thanks for your time.
 
 
 
Tony Brocci   27 Feb 2009
KAPL
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