Hi Grant,
Was the GECOS field meant to be consumed by a computer or human?
Computer for its original purpose. And computer again when things like
finger(1) would take it apart. As well as reading the above page,
there's
http://catb.org/jargon/html/G/GECOS.html
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Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy