FLEX Options File: Issue with Line-Initial MAX in GROUP Definitions

[koontz]

I've reported this, but in case anyone else is having problems, let me mention it here.

We had a group definition in our options file in the form:

GROUP grp1 user11 user12 user13 ...\
max user22 user 23 ...\
user31 user32 ...

In other words, the first user in the second line (continuation) chanced to be named max.

The result was that all users after that in the group were not included when the group was included. I assume the problem is having "max" at the start of a line. Perhaps it was taken as a MAX command. We didn't have this error in a comparable file for another vendor, so it may have something to do with implementing the extension of the suite license to all comprised years.

[TravisNave]

What an interesting coincidence! Thanks for sharing. If any of your users is named Format C:, you need to run.

[koontz]

In the context I'd be more worried about one named LINGER, NOLOG or INCLUDEALL. And in general it seems to me a matter of concern that some level of options file processing doen't know about continuation lines!

Note that we are not reflecting on the text of the group definitions as we manually add each username. We are generating those GROUP definitions automatically from a database of our users. We do that so we can easily maintain a complete user list, hereby excluding things like root, guest, administrator, and other untraceable local accounts from access FLEX hasn't yet realized that they might want to be able to import group definitions from sources like Acrtive Directory or NIS. Every few years I suggest it to them again. I have quite a folder of that suggestion in their big, round file cabinet of unwelcome ideas.

[koontz]

"We didn't have this error in a comparable file for another vendor, so it may have something to do with implementing the extension of the suite license to all comprised years"

What I mean by this is that it appears that Autodesk does some sort of macroexpansioon of the multiyear license feature. If you look at the debug logs each option line dealing with the multiyear license has been expanded into one line for each of the relevant year licenses. This is a feature unique to Autodesk license processing, and I think their macro explansion logic omitted to allow for the possibility that a keyword like MAX is not a keyword if it is at the start of a continuation line. It is only a keyword at the start of a logical line. The start of a continuation line is by definition the middle of a logical line. So, it's an outright bug in the options file processing, and a nasty one that should be fixed. MAX is the least of your worries. Consider

GROUP foo user11 user12 ...\
INCLUDEALL user22 ...\
...

No problem there, I guess, if foo is a group you intended to apply INCLUDEALL to. What if you wanted to apply EXCLUDEALL, though?