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From: tmoran@bix.com
Subject: Re: String manipulation question
Date: 1996/05/01
Message-ID: <4m703q$jnh@news1.delphi.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 152359212
organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-05-01T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


>as I assume Direct_IO needs an exact byte count of the record
>to find succesive records (makes sense).
>...
>type F_S_Flag is (Faculty, Student);
>type User_Record is record
>       UName, Real_Name, Street_Address, City, State, Zip, Phone,
>       Added, Deleted, Exit_Status, Comments : String(1..40);
>       FS_Flag : F_S_Flag;
>end record;
>       Put("User Name: ");
>       Get_Line(data.UName,Last);
>       data.Uname(Last+1..data.Uname'Last) :=
>       User_Record_Mask.Uname(Last+1..User_Record_Mask.Uname'Last);
>seems messy, but it must be done in order to maintain the constant length.
>Null terminated strings would work, but isn't the implentation of it in Ada
>just as messy as this? (How would you implement it?)
How about:
  Default_User_Record : constant User_Record
    :=(UName | Real_Name | Street_Address | City | State | Zip | Phone |
       Added | Deleted | Exit_Status | Comments => (1..40=>' '),
       FS_Flag => Student);

    procedure Fetch(prompt:in string; field:in out string) is
      buffer:string(field'range);
      last:integer;
    begin
      Put(prompt);
      Get_Line(buffer, last);
      -- just fill as much of Field as was entered.  Leave the rest alone.
      field(field'first .. last):=buffer(buffer'first .. last);
      -- if input was as long or longer than buffer, skip to next line
      if last = buffer'last then Skip_Line;end if;
    end Fetch;
and
    data:=Default_User_Record;     -- initialize all fields with defaults
    Fetch("User Name: ",      data.UName);
    Fetch("Real Name: ",      data.Real_Name);
    Fetch("Street Address: ", data.Street_Address);
etc.