Re: Reading variable-length records from a file

[Mark Johnson <mark_h_johnson@raytheon.com>]

Brian Catlin wrote:

> What is the best method for reading variable-length records from a file, using Ada (generic Ada, or GNAT)?  I have some files, from
> a VMS system, that I want to read on a Win2K system.  The files have the VMS standard "implied carriage control", which means that
> each "record" (or line; it's a text file) has a two-byte count value, followed by "count" bytes (characters).
>
>  -Brian

An ugly way to do it would be to write a "VMS_get_line" procedure to...
 - read the two characters to generate the line length (c2'pos*256+c1'pos)
 - read that many characters (and Pad as Larry mentioned)
and call that in lieu of Text_IO.Get_Line.

(or are you looking for a plug replacement so you can use Integer_IO... that would be harder)

  --Mark
PS: I could make a snide comment about it being easier to do in C, but that would be flame bait.