"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
news:94skovca8efqisiip65q37of63g28n1284@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 19:06:00 GMT, Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Since GNAT.OS_Lib.Getenv returns type String_Access, you have to use
> >String_Access if you want to use Getenv. But note the description of
> >Getenv from GNAT.OS_Lib:
> >
> >--  Get the value of the environment variable. Returns an access
> >--  to the empty string if the environment variable does not exist
> >--  or has an explicit null value (in some operating systems these
> >--  are distinct cases, in others they are not; this interface
> >--  abstracts away that difference. The argument is allocated on
> >--  the heap (even in the null case), and needs to be freed explicitly
> >--  when no longer needed to avoid memory leaks.
>
> Awful, I didn't expected that from ACT. The design above is definitely
> not Ada's idiom.
>
> ---
> Regards,
> Dmitry Kazakov
> www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Perhaps as in many OS it's the only way as the OS (probably written in C or
some other language simply returns it this way?

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St�phane Richard
"Ada World" Webmaster
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