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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Text_IO, was: Re: Something I don't understand
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:30:05 -0500
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Date: 2014-02-19T17:30:05-05:00
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Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> writes:

> On 14-02-19 17:06 , Robert A Duff wrote:
>> Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> writes:
>> 
>>> My notion of type "Text" is an internal representation of text meant for
>>> human reading and viewing. I don't see any logical need for making this
>>> type a class; there would be only one predefined (and private) type.
>> 
>> How is your notion of Text different from (say) HTML?
>
> Because "Text" is an internal form with a hidden implementation.
>
>> Or an internal tree-ish representation of HTML?
>
> More or less. Think "abstract syntax tree" instead of "concrete language
> sentence". Or "Document Object Model".

So what you're asking for is an Ada binding to HTML (or to
Postscript, or something).

>> Anyway, I'd say your notion of Text has nothing to do with Text_IO,
>> which is about plain unformatted text.  Originally 7-bit ASCII.
>
> Yes, Text_IO is about plain unformatted text, except for "typewriter
> formatting" with column, line, and page controls.

Right, what I meant is that if your notion of Text were added
to Ada, it should not replace Text_IO.  There's still a need for
simple I/O of simple sequences of characters.

What Text_IO SHOULD be about is plain text.  I'd get rid of the
page-related stuff, and I'd get rid of the line and column counters
-- we don't need that level of "formatting".

Of course, I'm just criticizing the design.  I'm not suggesting that
it should be changed now.  It should have been changed in 1979.
Compatibility rules!

> The discussion was about how to improve the text (output) facilities of
> Ada. The abstract "Text" structure is one suggestion. But it should
> perhaps be called something else, to avoid confusing Ada.Text_IO with
> Ada.Text.IO :-) Anyway, I'm not suggesting "Text" input, only "Text" output.

Understood.

- Bob