From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00
	autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
Path: 
 border2.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!backlog4.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Help with type definition
Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 16:50:26 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID: <ly38g9pvst.fsf@pushface.org>
References: <8beec1c1-9ca2-44fc-9d7e-0cd0aa772dcc@googlegroups.com>
 <1fg1g0pncjb4l$.1qve7hld7nxqv.dlg@40tude.net>
 <Ehqdv.117084$QE3.74073@fx16.iad>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Injection-Info: mx05.eternal-september.org;
 posting-host="942b5624700b15f09a730d9ed9406bd7";
 logging-data="21048"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";
 posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+Rj5DY3xz04E6anREwHtplCc8bzT5Z0II="
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (darwin)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:vj9rPdpe/mwnEETmMWAXIVgwSIY=
 sha1:jJuQ9A1T/Dici7Dl+PsrwC+8Oiw=
X-Original-Bytes: 1507
Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:186444
Date: 2014-05-16T16:50:26+01:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Shark8 <OneWingedShark@gmail.com> writes:

> On 16-May-14 01:54, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> Why -1 should
>> indicate null string and not 0 is a mystery.
>
> Because of the C-isms (a) that -1 indicates failure/non-presence, and
> (b) that all arrays are zero-based. -- IOW this is a format that has
> been prematurely optimized for C.

But it's the _length_ of the string; so what meaning would OP attach to
a received message with a length of zero, vs a length -1?