Keeping Track of Names

You need to know two things about other users to communicate with them:
  • Their user ID (user identification)
  • Their node (computer identification).

The node of a computer is similar to an area code. A user ID is similar to a phone number.

To find out a person's user ID, just ask. (A user ID is sometimes called a logon id.) If you are enrolled in the Shared File System, you can find out the user IDs that are enrolled in your file pool by typing:
query enroll user for all

If a person shares your computer system, their node is the same as yours. If a person uses a computer that is connected to yours, their node is different from yours.

You are probably thinking that is a lot of information to keep track of. But you can keep all this data in a special file, called a names file.