Re: Flexible Strings (was Equality operator...)

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

In article <53F35740C6EF076C.14BEEF8227919F71.39E2B6FED1F30314@library-proxy.airnews.net>,
Kevin Cline <clines@delete_this.airmail.net> wrote:
>I was a member of ANSI X3H3 (PHIGS) for two years.  I read the Ada'83 standard
>cover to cover.  I've read most of the C++ DWP.  Perhaps there is not a lot of
>difference in theory between Ada and C storage management, but there is a huge
>practical difference.  In C or C++, the application programmer can take
>complete control of the allocation process in a couple of ways.  In C++, new
>and delete can be redefined globally or on a class-by-class basis.
>Additionally, the compiler vendor's implementation of malloc and free can be 
>replaced with one more carefully tuned to the particular application.
>Although not mandated by the standard, almost all C compilers do link malloc
>and free from their run-time library, and replacement implementations can be
>linked instead.  Few Ada compilation systems are so open.

What you say may be true of Ada 83, but Ada 95 allows user-defined
storage pools.  You can use whatever allocation strategy you like.  This
is a required feature of all Ada compilers.  It much more flexible than
globally replacing malloc, because you get control on a per-access-type
basis.

- Bob