Java vs. Ada - strings (was: C vs. Ada - strings)

[Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>]

Pete wrote:

>     I see your point. But suppose in Java, I have
> Srting ar[] = new String[] { "have", "a", "good", "day" };
> // assume some processing.
> ar[2] = "junk";
>
> I think the Ada way to do this would be much more complicated. I may be
> wrong, can this be done so simply in Ada *without having to create new
> types, or making function calls*? If so, I am interested in seeing how to do
> this.

You are asking if you can create an object of a new type in Ada without creating
a new type? Of course not.

But that's pretty much equivalent to

type String_Ptr is access String;
type String_List is array (Natural range <>) of String_Ptr;
AR : constant String_List := (new String'("have"), new String'("a"), new
String'("good"), new String'("day"));

...without function calls. Although what your aversion to function calls buys
you is beyond me. One could easily create a custom type for ragged string arrays
perhaps using "and" as a constructor, which would clean this up to:

AR : constant Ragged_String_Array := "have" and "a" and "good" and "day";

This would also allow you to combine catenated strings and string arrays in one
expression into this type of construction

AR : constant Ragged_String_Array := "have" and Integer'image(Some_Var) & "
straight" and "good" and "days";

Which I believe would look a bit uglier in Java due to lack of a catenation
operator.

I've never done this myself because in 11 years of Ada work I've never had a
much need for ragged string arrays. That's probably why Ada doesn't come with a
type for them. :-)

--
T.E.D.

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