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Date:      Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:48:51 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Tony Holmes <tholmes@zeus.leitch.com>
To:        dec@phoenix.its.rpi.edu (David E. Cross)
Cc:        FreeBSD-hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD hackers list)
Subject:   Re: uid > 32000
Message-ID:  <199707071848.OAA00371@bitter.zeus.leitch.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970707134019.11631A-100000@phoenix.its.rpi.edu> from "David E. Cross" at "Jul 7, 97 01:49:04 pm"

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> It generall does not mean anything with modern unices.  In the 'old' days 
> UID was a signed 16bit integer, which limited you to 32767 different
> userids.  Userids > 32767 were really negative numbers. The definition in
> <pwd.h> has the UID as an unsigned int (32 bits), giving 2.1 billion
> different possibilities.  Other than that, it is just a number for the
> computer to use to track who owns what, there is nothing 'special' about
> it.  (the only special uid/gid is '0').

Thanks for the quick response.  I should have clarified that I was looking 
for the user-land assumptions when the number was negative (in light of
some user-land treatment as an signed 16 bit integer).

						Tony




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