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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 08:55:42 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: Re: Advent of Code Day 7
From: John Perry <john.perry@usm.edu>
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On Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 5:25:57 AM UTC-6, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> Humans are notoriously bad at counting things, and even worse at counting things 
> they can't see, so this kind of literal can be a source of errors, especially 
> during modification. (At least with Ada these tend to be compiler errors, not 
> run-time errors.) 
> 
> Of course, Ada offers a Better Way. You can write 
> 
> Description: Bag_Description := (Bag_Description'range => ' '); 
> 
> or 
> 
> Description: Bag_Description := (others => ' '); 
> 
> and be proof against any changes to Bag_Description's bounds. 

Very much appreciated! I was aware of "others =>" for arrays and records but didn't think to try it with strings. "Bag_Description'range =>" is entirely new to me.