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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Length of unbounded_string.
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:47:44 -0500
Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation
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Date: 2011-10-26T17:47:44-05:00
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"Simon Wright" <simon@pushface.org> wrote in message 
news:m2zkgopxr2.fsf@pushface.org...
...
> I think this is the 4th time you've been asked for this! NB, 'small'
> means also 'stand-alone'; just plain Ada, no Gtk etc. Write the
> reproducer as a complete working program, make sure it demonstrates the
> effect you're seeing, then attach it to a message (paste it into the
> message if you must, or put it on Dropbox or pastebin), don't re-type
> it. I don't think anyone has ever managed to re-type a program code into
> Usenet without a mistake.

This is always a problem for any sort of help desk (even an informal one 
like this newsgroup). I can't count the number of times that I was called or 
e-mailed a problem with Janus/Ada where the program fragment was too small 
to figure out what the problem was. In cases like that, it is just a stab in 
the dark to try to help (and asking for more is often considered rude and 
not helpful - help desk is a nearly thankless job).

Even people who should know better do it (and I know I have, too). It's a 
pain to create a reproducing example, but a lot of time when I do that, it 
becomes clear what is wrong (and it often is "operator error"!).

                                   Randy.