[HECnet] Is 00000A a valid DECnet node name?

[Paul Koning]

> On Jun 18, 2021, at 5:03 PM, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ...
> I know that a DECnet node can be a maximum of six characters long with only the numerals 0 (zero) to 9 (nine) and the letters A to Z.  However, I noticed some code in COMND% that checks to see that a node name has at least one alphabetic character in it.  I had never thought about that and was wondering what the actual standard says (or where that standard is).
> 
> Does is matter where the letter is?  In other words, are five numeral zero's followed by the letter 'A' valid?  Is '00000A' OK?

Yes.

The actual rule is exactly what you describe in COMND%: a valid node name consists of 1-6 alphanumerics including at least one letter.  It doesn't have to be at the start, unlike, say, variable names in most programming languages.

Some DECnet implementations do case folding, converting lower case to upper (which is generally considered the standard form).  I don't know if that is universally done.  RSTS/E is an example of an implementation that has the case folding.

	paul