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From: "Jeff C," <nolongersafeto@userealemailsniff.com>
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 <slrnbnqekm.j6.randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no>
Subject: Re: U : Unbounded_String := "bla bla bla"; (was: Is the Writing...)
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"Preben Randhol" <randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@pvv.org> wrote in
message
news:slrnbnqekm.j6.randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no...
> On 2003-10-02, amado.alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:
> > User-defined implicit conversion would solve this problem. Pragma
approach:
> >
> >   function To_Unbounded (S : String) return Unbounded_String;
> >   pragma Implicit_Conversion (To_Unbounded);
> >   U : Unbounded_String := "bla bla bla";
>
>
> NONONONONONONO
>
> Implicit conversion is the mother of all bugs. It is a nightmare in
> FORTRAN 77 and you have to put a definistion turning it off.
>
> Preben

While I somewhat agree with your basic premise here, we already have
implicit conversion
in Ada for numeric literals.

e.g I can write

type My_Integer is range 0 .. 10;

a : my_integer := 10;

I dont have to write

A : my_integer := to_my_integer(10);

So I agree that fixing the string problems via an all powerful pragma might
be a bad idea. Establishing
the idea of a Universal String might not be a bad idea..... Although in
reality once if we just
really standardize on "+" doing a conversion and being in the standard I
think the extra syntax overhead is
pretty minimal.