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From: mooremj@EGLIN-VAX.ARPA ("MARTIN J. MOORE")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Characters with codes >= 128
Message-ID: <8709010213.AA08396@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 31-Aug-87 16:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8709010213.AA08396
Posted: Mon Aug 31 16:47:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 00:45:16 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: "MARTIN J. MOORE" <mooremj@eglin-vax.arpa>
Organization: The ARPA Internet
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

I encountered the same problem in attempting to use DEC's extended character
set.  I worked around it by using an UNCHECKED_CONVERSION to stick 8-bit
values into CHARACTER objects (thereby making the program erroneous according
to the LRM; however, it worked.) 

For example, to use the DEC control character CSI (= 155) I did:

  function EIGHT_BIT_CHARACTER is new UNCHECKED_CONVERSION (INTEGER, CHARACTER);

  CSI : constant CHARACTER := EIGHT_BIT_CHARACTER (155);

Characters so defined could then be used in string constants, such as
the following:

  ERASE_SCREEN : constant STRING := CSI & "2J";	-- ANSI erase screen command

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Moore
mooremj@eglin-vax.arpa
------