Gpadnames lengthens the name fields of all student records in a grades file.
gpadnames [-W minWidth] [files]
Gpadnames adds blanks at the end of all student names in each of the grades files so that they are at least as long as minWidth characters. It does not shorten any names.
The reason for providing this command is that gnames produces names of varying lengths. This is a problem when using a text editor on a grades file, because it's hard to see where the marks line up.
For most students, 20 is enough, but your class probably has at least some that are longer than that. One or two students in a large class may have names longer than 30 characters; you might choose 35 for near-absolute certainty, or 30 if you're prepared to notice the occasional out-of-synch record.
There is no truly absolute certainty, however, since it's not clear yet (in November 1998) whether the new student record system will have limits on name length, or, if so, what the limits will be.
This program is new. The old version didn't need it, because it didn't use separator characters (tabs) before marks, so it required the name to be a fixed length. In practice, this turned out to be a recurring nuisance -- and that's one of the reasons why separator characters were added in this version.