From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,66bc6b039f1e005d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-10-28 04:10:06 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail From: Robert Dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Three simple questions Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 10:57:06 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Message-ID: <8tebe3$e4u$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <2BED68CA963D6D55.A78776F656DA0452.75A61ED22116F1B6@lp.airnews.net> <39e2588f.21565740@news.demon.co.uk> <39E2D51E.D0122F20@bton.ac.uk> <8s0b78$2no$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8s8jmo$qt0$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39EA448C.28DF1A2C@bellsouth.net> <878zrov93g.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <8shv47$9281@news.cis.okstate.edu> <87wvf5hnp9.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <8sn71i$8a21@news.cis.okstate.edu> <8ssaig$7hg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8sseq9$a2g1@news.cis.okstate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.38.240 X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat Oct 28 10:57:06 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; I) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x70.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.240 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:1606 Date: 2000-10-28T10:57:06+00:00 List-Id: In article <8sseq9$a2g1@news.cis.okstate.edu>, dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org wrote: > >It may be helpful to remember that the Ada RM has NOTHING to > >say about how programs are represented. There is no necessary > > Then what does section 2.1 of the RM mean? It is a VERY common misconception that 2.1 dictates representation and suggests that the representaiton has something to do with Standard.Character, but this is just a "common sense" guess. This section merely says that the compiler must be able to represent a certain set of characters in the source, it has nothing whatsoever to say about what representations are used. For example, it would be quite fine to require keywords to be written in bold in an environment where this made some kind of sense (e.g. old style paper tape codes where Algol keywords were typically marked as bold to distinguish them from identifiers :-) Whether it is a good idea or not depends on the environment. I can certainly see an EBCDIC compiler using EBCDIC for source representation even if type Standard.Character has to be ASCII, but for most compilers in a typical environment, it makes sense to choose a representation identical to Standard.Character. It may well be the case in fact that you can use Text_IO to read a source file, and get what you expect, but section 2.1 of the RM definitely does NOT guarantee this. Indeed it is very clearly spelled out: 4 The character repertoire for the text of an Ada program consists of the collection of characters called the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) of the ISO 10646 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set, plus a set of format_ effectors and, in comments only, a set of other_control_functions; the coded representation for these characters is implementation defined (it need not be a representation defined within ISO-10646-1). Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.