Re: How to assign STRINGs?

[news.bu.edu!inmet!spock!stt@decwrl.dec.com (Tucker Taft)]

In article <1993Aug27.153504.1340@warm.inmet.com> 
  brennan@warm.inmet.com (William Brennan) writes:

>In article <1993Aug25.121754.20413@hellgate.utah.edu> 
  matwood%peruvian.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Mark Atwood) writes:

>>So, how DO i assign the results of a function returning an unconstrained
>>string to a constrained string?
>
>Here's a solution I've found useful. . .
>It has the disadvantage of using dynamic memory.

[solution using allocator and unchecked deallocation omitted]

As has been pointed out by others, the following approach 
avoids the explicit allocator and deallocation:

with Text_IO;
with DOS;
procedure Echo is
  Cmd_Line : constant String := DOS.Get_Parms;
begin
  Text_IO.Put_Line(Cmd_Line);
  ... other work with Cmd_Line
end Echo;

The only reason to use an allocator might be to make the string
globally accessible.  However, presuming it is safe to call
the DOS package during library level elaboration, you could
just as easily have a global in some package:

with DOS;
pragma Elaborate(DOS);
package Parameters is
   Cmd_Line : constant String := DOS.Get_Parms;
  . . .
end Parameters;

Hope that helps...

S. Tucker Taft
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA  02138