* doc/autoconf.texi (Limitations of Usual Tools): Don't claim

that traditional Awk lacks 3-arg "split".  It has it.
Mention that FS must be a single character, and a few other
99-byte limits of traditional Awk.

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index a8a084e36f1e90b15d36df8fea90762082ddb1e1..737d523ff29ddf6bbaacc5d491a14e77735074c2 100644 (file)
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2006-11-21  Paul Eggert  <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
+
+       * doc/autoconf.texi (Limitations of Usual Tools): Don't claim
+       that traditional Awk lacks 3-arg "split".  It has it.
+       Mention that FS must be a single character, and a few other
+       99-byte limits of traditional Awk.
+
 2006-11-18  Paul Eggert  <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
 
        * tests/autotest.at (BSx641-newline in command):

diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index adecc7a6691b882a83b224680429b5e933a4d504..06651d305d347da9f6b4c623dff7885efd2e702c 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -13046,12 +13046,22 @@ Traditional Awk supports only the predefined functions @code{exp},
 Traditional Awk @code{getline} is not at all compatible with Posix;
 avoid it.
 
-Traditional Awk @code{split} supports only two arguments.
+In traditional Awk, @code{FS} must be a string containing just one
+ordinary character, and similarly for the field-separator argument to
+@code{split}.
 
 Traditional Awk has a limit of 99
 fields in a record.  You may be able to circumvent this problem by using
 @code{split}.
 
+The original version of Awk had a limit of at most 99 bytes per
+@code{split} field, 99 bytes per @code{substr} substring, and 99 bytes
+per run of non-special characters in a @code{printf} format, but these
+bugs have been fixed on all practical hosts that we know of.
+
+Traditional Awk has a limit of at most 99 bytes in a number formatted by
+@code{OFMT}; for example, @code{OFMT="%.300e"; print 0.1;} will dump
+core.
 
 @item @command{basename}
 @c ---------------------