What I am looking for is a way to read in a values from a file ,assign them 
once to  records and disallow any future assignment i.e. these "constant 
parts of the records represent a structure that I don't want to ever change 
during the life of the program (write once and read only afterwards).  It 
would be similar to a constant declaration but inside of a record. I don't 
think that it is disgusting at all.
"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message 
news:ObSdnQYngMQKEzDZnZ2dnUVZ_oadnZ2d@megapath.net...
> "Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote in message
> news:p6fi8e.de4.ln@hunter.axlog.fr...
>> Randy Brukardt a �crit :
>> >
>> > I can say that the notion that something declared "constant" could in
> fact
>> > be assigned to in some scope is rather disgusting. I don't think it
> would
>> > fly.
>> >
>> Hmmm.... Initialization of controlled constants?
>
> After initialization, of course. (Constants are assign-once, logically.
> Assign-never would be a problem, because they'd have no value at all in 
> that
> case!) And similarly, before finalization (although it shouldn't really be
> necessary to clear the finalized result -- but it is often done, and
> harmless to do).
>
> Still, allowing the assignment of a name that is declared to be a constant
> view at some point between initialization and finalization would be a 
> nasty
> change to the language. (Note that it might be possible to assign via a
> different name; that's a different issue -- and one that is usually a
> programming error.) Otherwise, "constant" would essentially be
> meaningless -- bringing us back to the beginning; if it doesn't mean
> anything, why bother with it at all?
>
>                                    Randy.
>
>