Re: overload ":=" ???

[bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)]

In article <31F40F0C.3FDACA19@jinx.sckans.edu>,
David Morton  <dmorton@jinx.sckans.edu> wrote:
>I looked at that, and it would be great, but...
>RM A.04.04.106
>seems to say that this isn't good with dynamic pointers
>(or am I misreading this?)

Maybe.  It's just saying (to the Ada implementer) that Bounded_String
should be a record containing a character count, plus an array of
characters containing the max size (as opposed to some pointer-ish
implementation).  You can make pointers to these things if you want to
-- A.4.4(106) is not restricting the *user* in any way.

If you want unbounded strings (which *are* implemented using pointers),
then look at A.4.5.  These are more flexible but less efficient.

>>    If you allow programmers to play with assignment, you'll definitly
>> damage the readability of all Ada sources.

If you allow programmers to play with "+" and "=", you'll ... ;-)

>what about "write-ability" ????

Irrelevant.  If you want that, use perl (I'm echoing Laurent's earlier
remark).  ;-)

- Bob