Re: Array of bytes type

["Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com>]

Joseph P Vlietstra wrote:
> We will probably standardize on one array of bytes type, play with
> renames, etc.  But this effort has raises a question: what is the
> plainest, simplest to reuse, declaration of an array of bytes?

I would use the stuff in Ada.Streams. Given that its part of the
language standard, many features become available automatically as a
result. Also, add-on software is likely to utilize it as well. As for
the stream element being other than a byte in size, I'd guess this is
likely to be a non-issue. Most machines use byte oriented storage and
I'd think (but have never surveyed) most compilers would match this. It
is the most universally used size for so many things that an implementor
would be foolish to do otherwise. The only exception I could think of
would be if someone had an implementation for a machine like the
Mil-Std-1750a where the standard storage unit is a 16 bit word. Those
cases are so rare that I wouldn't worry about it. (The standard probably
didn't explicitly specify a byte just in case there was an oddball
architecture like this being targeted, but I'd guess most everyone
expected this would normally be done as a byte.)

MDC
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Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/
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