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

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

Kevin Cline said

<<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.>>


Apparently you have not kept up with the times, you are comparing an
obsolete version of Ada to C++, which is rather inappropriate, considering
that Ada 95 is standardized several years before C++!

So I suggest you bring yourself up to date before making statements about
what "few Ada compilation systems" may or may not provide. Our convention
in this newsgroup is that Ada undecorated means the current version of
Ada, i.e. Ada 95 (note that the Ada 95 standard is now over two years
old, there are over 50 validated compilers, and Ada 95 is available on
virtually every common architecture, so we are not talking science fiction
here).

One of the important features in Ada 95 is the storage pool mechanism,
which provides considerably more flexibility than the corresponding
C++ mechanisms. All versions of GNAT, and most if not all, other
Ada 95 technologies fully support this storage pool feature.