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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: CRC in Ada?
Date: 1997/03/24
Message-ID: <1997Mar24.130721.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <1997Mar2.220652@nova.wright.edu> <dewar.858769863@merv>
 <3332CA3D.379F@bix.com> <dewar.859141238@merv> <E7K2q1.EDF@world.std.com>
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Organization: LJK Software
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-03-24T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <E7K2q1.EDF@world.std.com>, bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) writes:
> In article <dewar.859141238@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>The Sequential_IO, Text_IO and Direct_IO packages of Ada are at a significantly
>>higher semantic level. ...
> 
> I won't comment on Sequential_IO and Direct_IO, but surely Text_IO is
> intended to produce a format that makes sense to non-Ada programs.  That
> is, if I write a file using Text_IO, and I don't do anything funny with
> control characters, then I ought to be able to read that file into my
> favorite text editor (say, Emacs), and have it make sense.  If the Ada
> system is putting weird stuff in the file, which makes this impossible,
> then that's a bug, IMHO.  (IMHO, the term "bug" refers to any
> wrong/undesirable behavior, whether or not it violates the Ada standard.
> That is, the set of possible bugs in an Ada compiler is a superset of
> the set of possible vilations of the RM.)

Depending on the operating system, it may be possible to write a file
which makes sense to one non-Ada program but not to another. So if we
say that Text_IO output should be readable by "some" non-Ada programs
or "ANSI-standard" non-Ada programs, that still leaves a lot of room
for "bugs" to use your definition.  It is entirely possible to have
two tools both of which are "favorites" which don't handle things in
the same fashion.  Thus one can have a "bug" (as always, seen in the
eye of the user) which Standard Ada (no platform tricks) could not
avoid.

Larry Kilgallen