Re: Help parsing the language manual on Get'ing integers from Strings

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"John Perry" <john.perry@usm.edu> wrote in message 
news:e9ed12c5-9254-4d44-823e-a2f3f8da16aan@googlegroups.com...
> AdaCore replies:
>
>> Thanks for your report.  We believe the intent of the RM is that
> arbitrary lookahead/backtracking should not be required, so GNAT raises
> an exception when it encounters something wrong (like a base > 16).  We
> believe no Ada compilers are in strict conformance to the rules in this
> area, and ARG has agreed not to test this area strictly.  Perhaps
> RM-A.10.8(8) should be clarified/corrected.

For what it's worth, we once tried to do that, but couldn't come to an 
agreement on precisely what to change the wording to. As a change is not 
critical, we didn't make one. The ACATS has long had tests in this area that 
require something subtly different than the wording requires, and it didn't 
make any sense to change them (since presumably all implementers are passing 
them, rather than strictly following the RM wording).

In any case, the ":" replacement trips up people from time-to-time, as 
pretty much no one remembers it. I recall we had to change some piece of new 
syntax because the possibility of a colon in a number made it ambiguous.

                        Randy.