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

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Wes said

<<The problem with Ada 83 is that when you do need it, memory leaks are bound
to happen, because clients often forget to clean up the data structure.
Thankfully, this has been corrected in Ada 95.
>>

That's a ferocious and incorrect over-generalization. Of course it is 
possible to use the heap in Ada 83 programs without having memory leaks.
In fact I would guess that the majority of all Ada programs ever written
are in this category.

Yes, you can program memory leaks in Ada 83 if you are sloppy.

No, Ada 95 does not magically prevent this, although the use of
finalization can help, if used carefully -- if used carelessly
it can make things worse, by obscuring where the leaks are taking
place.