Re: Ada multiple string personalities. why so many?

[robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com]

In article <7akgld$5ue@drn.newsguy.com>,
  mike@eexz wrote:
> In article <7akabo$1uk$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
> Why did Ada had to have 3 types for a string? the
> standard  string, the bounded string, and the unbounded
> string.
>
> In C++, there is only one <string> header that defines
> one string container template thing that holds
> character things. just one.
>
> So, a C++ string is like that of Ada's
> ada.strings.unbounded.string.
>
> That is all what is really needed, no?.

In short, no!

There are distinct needs here and the three types meet
these distinct needs. Obviously for example you could
not use unbounded strings in an embedded application where
dynamic allocation was not permitted. Equally obviously,
C++ has a big hole in such environments compared to Ada
if it does not provide the important functionality of
Bounded Strings (well of course -- big hole -- you can
of course program this functionality yourself).

> It might not be the most
> efficient, but it seems better to have one general type
> that does everything that 3 different types one can do a
> litle more with.


If efficiency is of no concern to you, I suggest you stop
fiddling with low level languages like Ada and C++ and
instead use very high level languages like Prolog, or
Haskell, you will find that indeed it makes programming
simpler :-)

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