A rose by any other hostname.c

This meetup concentrates on the common and simple commands; this time: hostname.

The hostname command sets and prints the name of the current system. It ranges from simple (set and print) to complex (aliases, FQDN, IP addresses, verbosity, NIS, etc.).

We will look at Apple, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, GNU, and Illumos implementations.

With the many different authors and distinct cultures we will be sure to have much to discuss and compare. Some things to think about: what are some uses for the hostname command? How does GNU try extra hard to get the hostname? What's the use cases for the fully-qualified domain name? In what context would the hostname program be created?

Just in case you don't have six copies of hostname.c sitting on your hard drive, you can find them online:

FreeBSD:

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/bin/hostname/hostname.c?revision=250037&view=markup

NetBSD:

http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/bin/hostname/hostname.c?rev=1.21&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

OpenBSD:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/bin/hostname/hostname.c?rev=1.10&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

GNU:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/hostname.c

Illumos:

https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/blob/master/usr/src/cmd/hostname/hostname.c

This should all take about three hours. Food and drinks will be provided by thoughtbot (http://thoughtbot.se/?utm_source=sthlmrb&utm_medium=meetup).

About us:

This is a reading group for code. Our focus is the classics and tools we use every day. The inspiration is the shared metaphors and expressions we have in natural language due to common books (e.g. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Romeo and Juliet) and movies (e.g. Hackers, A Christmas Carol).