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From: dale <dale@cs.rmit.edu.au>
Subject: Re: C vs. Ada - strings
Date: 2000/05/18
Message-ID: <dale-FF1F1A.14272618052000@news.rmit.edu.au>#1/1
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Pete wrote:

> really both versions aren't that great. java strings are much better. if 
> s
> and t are strings of different lengths, suppose
> s = "junk";
> t = "garbage". it should make sense to write s = s + t; and your result 
> is
> "junkgarbage" as java does. you should definitely not have to make sure 
> that
> s is big enough to hold a string of length s and t or call any function 
> to
> reallocate memory. it should happen automatically, under the covers.

You should try unbounded_strings, as this gives you the flexibility
that you seem to want.

the
> most annoying thing in ada is the output messages.

i'm not sure what you mean by "output messages".

if you write
> Positive'Image("5"). You get back
> " 5", with a space for an optional - sign, even though it is a positive
> number! or even worse,

(should read Positive'Imge (5))
i've always thought of attributes such as these as rather low level
features good for debugging, but not really of much use for fancy
formatting. Still it can be annoying. You have to apply the trim
function, or slice the array yourself, which is annoying.

instantiate a generic package to handle printing 
> of
> numbers, instead of
> System.out.println("This is junk " + i); (where i is a numeric type).

Yes, but with this simplicity you get a very real problem - the
inability to define new distinct numeric types. Which do you think
is the bigger problem - having to choose b/w int and long for almost
all integer work (without the ability to have unsigned ints), 
or having to instantiate (or do a type conversion) to get output?
Note that you could always include your own package of functions
to get exactly the same behaviour as you see above in Java.


Dale