Here's what I understand from Martin+me at the end of the call: - name and desc are OUT strings, for both control and perf vars. So we need to have this whole mess apply to all 4 cases. - we keep the idea of separating the two concepts: 1. the (conceptual) internal value for the string, which will be identical across connected processes 2. copying it to an output buffer, where it may be truncated - so up in 14.3.3, have a definition for "<foo> strings" (someone come up with a better name than "<foo>"): - an MPI implementation behaves if the string is identical across all connected processes - when this string is copied to an output buffer, it may be truncated (e.g., if the user specifies an output buffer length that is too small). - Then in the four cases (name/desc for control/perf vars), say that they are <foo> strings. For example, "desc is a <foo> string (see section 14.3.3)". Something along these lines... -- Jeff Squyres [email protected] For corporate legal information go to: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/legal/cri/