Re: How to do it in Ada ?

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

Heck, if I were going to do it the natural Ada way, I'd say:

with Ada.Command_Line;
with Ada.Text_Io; -- for debug only
procedure Main is

   -- N is the first argument, if it is specified and "reasonable".
   -- Otherwise, it defaults to the value 1 (one array element).
   function N return Positive is
      subtype OK_Range is Positive range 1 .. 65_535;
      -- 65,535 can be replaced with whatever is "reasonable"
      -- for an upper limit, or the range eliminated altogether.
   begin
      return OK_Range'Value(Ada.Command_Line.Argument(1));
   exception
      when others =>
         return 1;
   end N;

   X : array (1 .. N) of Integer := (others => 0);

begin

   Ada.Text_Io.Put_Line("Hey! You've got an array of" &
      Natural'Image(X'Length) & " element(s)!");

   -- do what you gotta do

end Main;