Variable length strings??

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate !doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!dcl-cs!marc@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Marc Goldman)]

I have a problem which has been causing me some headaches recently, and
i was hoping someone on here could help....

I am reading paths from a configuration file for the system i'm writing,
these paths are not of a set length, as they will depend on where the
system is installed.

I'm reading them into a long string, but ideally i need the string to be
the exact same length as the path. And i need this string variable to be
globally readable, not just for the scope of a particular function/procedure.

Any suggestions?? i've been messing with descriminate record types, but
with no success so far.

Any help greatly appriciated,

Thanks
Marc

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