Re: String to Integer conversion?

[Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> <<Fair enough, but it would have been helpful to have a predefined
> instantiation, so that everyone (ie working programmers like me) can
> share the same one.
> >>
> 
> Why?

Perhaps this is just an Ada 83 problem, because that version of Ada
didn't have the attributes Duration'Image and Duration'Value.  Without
those attributes, there is a real need for a Duration_IO.

It may indeed be the case the neophyte programmers in a class-room
setting don't require the use of Duration.  But they can't avoid using a
delay statement forever.

In my experience, the need for manipulation of Duration strings is
_very_ common.  One thing I do quite often is to translate an
environment variable that represents the value of an entry call delay,
for example, or a timeout for I/O to an external device.  This way I can
tune delays and timeouts without recompiling anything.