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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: basic basic ada question
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 19:03:08 -0400
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Date: 2006-10-19T19:03:08-04:00
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James Alan Farrell <jfarrell@nospam.com> writes:

> 2. There does not seem to be an argument(0).  It appears to be the case
> you cannot reference the name used to call the program.

No, you can.  Take a look at the Command_Line package in the RM.

> 4. All parameters are stored in arrays of 1024 characters, which is
> innefficient.

And it's an annoying arbitrary limitation.

>...  It would be possible to declare a string access type and
> allocate a string on the heap for each parameter.  (Mostly I've used Ada
> in safety critical environments where that is considered bad form.)  But
> if you do this the need for the record goes away because you can then
> use the 'length attribute to write out the argument.
>
> I don't think it is possible to have different length strings holding
> the arrays without using accesses and dynamic allocations (someone
> correct me if I'm wrong).

That's correct, but the Unbounded_Strings package can be used to hide
the dynamic allocation.  Probably not appropriate for your safety
critical environments, but sensible in other environments.

- Bob