What is nameout() for?

I am confused by nameout().  There are a number of places where table
names are output using nameout(), and many other cases where they are
just output without calling nameout.  Can someone explain why the dash
is important?  I can see the pstrdup as being important, but not in all
of the cases where nameout is called.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

/*
 *      nameout - converts internal reprsentation to "..."
 */
char *
nameout(NameData *s)
{  
    if (s == NULL)
        return "-";
    else 
        return pstrdup(s->data);
}

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