Re: 'first of strings returned from a function should be 1?

[Dale Stanbrough <dale@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>]

David C. Hoos writes:

"What's wrong with Result_String (Result_String'first) for getting at the
 first character of a function result?"

Because i wanted to call the function, store the first character and not
declare a local string. I am guessing that a local string would require
extra copying (which i generally try to design out of programs)
from heap to stack, although this may not be the case.

"From my own experience, I know that it is easy to write a poor function
 returning a string result of which the first subscript is not 1, and I
 always make the effort to slice (if necessary) the result into the range 1
 . result'length, but if you're using
 something you can't change, then something like 
 New_Result (1 .. Result_String'length) :=
 Result_String(Result_String'first .. result_String'first +
 Result_String'length -1)
 will do the job."

Yes, this will work, but it also requires copying. The subtype solution
seems better to me.

thanks anyway.

Dale