Re: unconstrained array clarification

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <WishList-1909981042300001@a1.phoenix-7.goodnet.com> WishList@2600.com (Technobabble) writes:

  > What I want to do is to keep the addresses for several arrays of records
  > of different lengths in an array of pointers. Then write the contents of
  > each record to I/O.  The problem is to do this with only the array of
  > pointers, if I don't want to keep track of the size of each array (number
  > of records), and I want to use the RANGE attribute to determine the size. 
  > But the only way I have of getting to the array of records is via the
  > pointer.  I didn't design this stuff either, it's adopted from legacy
  > code. I'll re-code the stuff in GNAT with the changes you've supplied and
  > see if I can get a good compile.

   What you want to do is to declare an access type which is your
object type:

   type XYZ is private;
   type XYZ_Array is array(Natural range <>) of XYZ;
   ...
  private

   type XYZ_Object is array(Natural range <>) of Foo;
   type XYZ is access XYZ_Object;

   If Foo is Character, you can use Ada.Strings.Unbounded, otherwise
you can use the GNAT implementation to see how to make it all work.
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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