conversion

["Andrew" <andrew@carroll-tech.net>]

Ok, so I found the ada.strings.unbounded package spec and body and took a
look
at the definition and implementation of unbounded string.  Finally I found
them!

Unbounded_string is basically an object that contains a reference to a
string.
It would be something like:

typdef struct unbounded_string{
    char* reference;
}

with methods to manipulate the structure.  My example may not be
syntactically correct
but I think I convey the basic idea.  String is an array, Unbounded_String
is an
"object" that contains a reference to an array.

So...The conversion from Unbounded_String to String is pretty easy.  Return
the
pointer de-reference.  From String to Unbounded_String is the expensive one.
In
general it is:
allocate memory
copy values from old to new
return the new.

So, using unbounded and calling to_string is relatively fast.  Good, I'm
satisfied with
that part.  I think it would be easy enough to create a slice and trim
method that
returned an unbounded_string so that I would not have to use the expensive
string to
unbounded_string conversion and that nagging inconvenience would be
pacified.

Dmitry mentioned that get_line reads in to a string buffer.  Then after the
line
was read another string could be made because the last parameter is the
length of
what was read.  Your absolutely right!  I knew that and looked right over
it.

It wasn't hard at all to write a program that uses to_string and
to_unbounded_string.
It works.  It's just that I didn't realize in design that I would need so
many conversions
and I wasn't fluent enough with all the "utility" methods like slice, trim,
head, etcetera
to really specify at design time whether I needed String or
Unbounded_String.  Once
implementation time came up I almost immediately had to go back to design
because
I was introducing so much code for the conversions.  I thought "there has to
be a better
way".

Something else I really like about Ada is separate compilation.  I can
separate subprocedures
into other files with the "is separate" and Separate(<name>) feature.  That
one thing would
make code SO much more manageable.  I could spread that thing out and assign
tasks by
function if needed.  Then, just compile!

I also was trying to get gnatmem to run but it fails.

Has anyone used the Ada Core Technologies compiler?  How does it compare to
the public
GNAT that I'm using; comes with FreeBSD Unix.

Thanks for the help!

Andrew