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From: "Jerry Coffin" <jcoffin@taeus.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada)
Date: 23 Mar 2005 12:28:27 -0800
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Date: 2005-03-23T12:28:27-08:00
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Matthew Heaney wrote:
> Jerry Coffin wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of strings, I'll digress for a moment: personally, I find
> > it a bit humorous when Ada advocates talk about things like having
> > five string types as an advantage. IMO, the need, or even belief,
> > that five string types are necessary or even useful is a _strong_
> > indication that all five are wrong.
>
> It's the same as in C++:
>
> char[]
> wchar_t[]
> std::string
> std::wstring
>
> The string types in Ada95 are very similar:
>
> String
> Wide_String
> Unbounded_String
> Wide_Unbounded_String

char[] and wchar_t[] are arrays, not strings. C++ really only has one
string type: std::basic_string. std::string and std::wstring are not
types of their own at all, but simply typedefs as:

typedef std::basic_string<char> string;
typedef std::basic_string<wchar_t> wstring;

In addition, one of the major arguments the Ada fans have used here is
that Ada's strings are built-in, NOT added as a class like in C++. If
C++ had been designed from the beginning with a string class, the
array-based "stuff" probably wouldn't exist at all.

BTW, in case anybody really cares, yes I apply the same standard to
C++: while its string handling facilities are fewer and IMO better than
Ada's, they're still far short of perfect.

--
    Later,
    Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.