Re: Text_IO, was: Re: Something I don't understand

[Jeffrey Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org>]

On 02/19/2014 02:46 PM, Robert A Duff wrote:
>
> Put("There were \1 warnings and \2 errors.\n",
>      Image(Warning_Count), Image(Error_Count));

And then you end up with

There were 1 warnings and 1 errors.

I suppose you could have

Put ("There were \1 \2 and \3 \4.\n",
      Image (Warning_Count),
      (if Warning_Count = 1 then "warning" else "warnings"),
      Image (Error_Count),
      (if Error_Count = 1 then "error" else "errors") );

but then the Template is essentially unreadable.


Put ("There were \1 warning\2 and \3 error\4.\n",
      Image (Warning_Count),
      (if Warning_Count = 1 then "" else "s"),
      Image (Error_Count),
      (if Error_Count = 1 then "" else "s") );

but then you can't use "" to indicate the end of the strings to include in the 
output.

Any way you approach it is ugly. There should be some way to deal with this that 
is simpler and easier than what we have.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"C's solution to this [variable-sized array parameters] has real
problems, and people who are complaining about safety definitely
have a point."
Dennis Ritchie
25