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From: Jeff Carter <spam.carter.not@spam.innocon.com>
Subject: Re: newbie problem
Date: 1998/12/07
Message-ID: <366C0409.E551CFBC@spam.innocon.com>#1/1
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Organization: Innovative Concepts, Inc.
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Date: 1998-12-07T00:00:00+00:00
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Graeme Wallace wrote:
> 
> If I want to get user input for my program in the form of a  string of
> undefined length, how do I do so ?  If I set the string length to, say:
> 
> help_me_please : String(1..20);
> 
> I seem to be stuck with a string exactly that size.  What is the
> variable assignment which allows the actual length of the user input to
> determine the length of the string which the io system
> (ada.text_io.)gets ?
> 

The way to do this is to use a function that returns a String:

function Get_Line
   (File : Ada.Text_Io.File_Type := Ada.Text_Io.Current_Input)
return String;

Help_Me_Please : String := Get_Line;

This will generally serve. You can obtain more flexibility at the price
of more complexity by converting the result of the function to a
variable-length string (Ada.Strings.Bounded or Ada.Strings.Unbounded).
-- 
Jeff Carter
E-mail: carter commercial-at innocon [period | full stop] com
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail