Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew answered a similar question in 2006 in:

 https://epics.anl.gov/tech-talk/2006/msg01310.php

There he said:

 I would also suggest that you try *really* hard to limit your record
 names to the maximum recommended 28 characters.  You *can* make them
 longer (up to 60 characters), but until the EPICS 40 character string
 length limit goes away (which means until the Channel Access protocol
 gets revised and the database and all of the tools are modified to use
 variable length strings) using longer names *will* end up causing you
 difficulties.

Since it's 2018 now, all those modifications have occurred, right?

In the same post, Andrew went on to say:

 Why is the recommended limit only 28 characters?  Well if you want to
 change a link field via Channel Access you only have 40 characters to
 hold the complete link value, and as well as the record name the link
 might need dot field name (5 chars with the standard record types) and
 the flags NPP/PP/CA/CP/CPP and NMS/MS which will need another 7 chars
 (you can omit the space between them if necessary, but not the one
 that terminates the field name).  That leaves just 28 characters for
 the name, and yes I am allowed to leave the terminating \0 byte out of
 that calculation.

Applying the same logic to allow for the dot, field name, and flags,
would make for a new effective *record name* length limit of 48 (60 -
12) characters.

However, with support for writing a link field over
Channel Access as a byte waveform, I do not need to allow for the dot,
field name, and flags anymore.  So, the effective *record name* length
limit is still 60 characters (excluding the terminating null character).
The byte waveform written over Channel Access to a link field could be
72 characters (or more if there are spaces between the flags).  All
correct?