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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!planck!corsair!westley
From: westley@corsair.uucp (Terry J. Westley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Stylistic question: returning strings vs. pointers to strings
Message-ID: <1990Mar8.141421.27352@planck.uucp>
Date: 8 Mar 90 14:14:21 GMT
References: <10968@june.cs.washington.edu> <920019@hpclapd.HP.COM> <EACHUS.90Mar7172539@aries.aries.mitre.org>
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Reply-To: westley%hercules@planck.UUCP (Terry J. Westley)
Organization: Calspan Corporation ATC  Buffalo, NY
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <EACHUS.90Mar7172539@aries.aries.mitre.org> eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
>
>  package COMMAND_LINE is
>
>    function NARGS                return Integer;
>    function ARG (Index: Integer) return String; 
>
>  end COMMAND_LINE;
>

This is precisely what we have built during our evaluation of Telesoft and
Verdix compilers on Sun 4s.  Both of these compilers have Unix command line
interface packages in Ada.  But, they are different!  I love the fact that I
can build one spec (as above) with two different bodies which perform the
necessary calls to the vendor-specific packages.  Besides, neither Verdix or
Telesoft came up with something as clean and clear as Mr. Eachus shows us.

Terry J. Westley
Arvin/Calspan Advanced Technology Center
P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225
acsu.buffalo.edu!planck!westley@hercules