Re: Beginer problem: variable array size

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
 > If you can't show such a program, then I'd like to know what in
> fact are its limits, either as a constant like 8*3600 or 10_000_000
> or by a formula like "System_RAM_In_Bytes/2" or some such thing.

How very odd. You yourself posted a program which meets the OP's
requirements. In the terms you describe above, can you tell me
what the limits are of your program?

There is a fundamental difference between a program which has a
wired-in size limit and a program which is bound by available
memory, or even available address space. For one thing, when the
latter program is moved to a system with more resources, it will
hndle larger inputs. The former program will be stuck at its limit
until it's revised.

My former office mate held by the rule of "zero, one, or infinity"
when it came to allowable limits. I have seen this rule violated
to much distress. The latest example occurred just weeks ago, when
the risk management system we use was discovered to have a hard
limit of one hundred different security types.