Re: FAQ and string functions

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> writes:

> I didn't write Get_Next_Word (nor do I claim responsibility for the
> problem that code has with improperly-terminated files :-)
> 
> I would be surprised if the part of the Perl code that *implements*
> split was short.
> 
> When I *use* Get_Next_Word it only takes a line ...

Yeah, but in Ada you have to implement it (or rummage around on the net
to see if somebody already did, or see if your compiler vendor supports
it), whereas with Perl, it's already there.

Suppose I'm writing a long-lived application that does string fiddling.
Should I choose Ada (because it has good type checking and whatnot,
which helps make my code maintainable), or should I choose Perl, because
it has useful string fiddling ops available (*portably* available)?
It's annoying to have to make that choice, because the two issues are
orthogonal (there's no reason why a language can't be good in both
ways).

So I think the original poster's complaint is reasonable.  The complaint
is, "X is not available"; the response, "well, you can write X yourself"
is not impressive.

To be honest, I would never choose Perl for *anything*, because I value
various "ilities" over having some useful operations available.
(I think Perl is an abomination.)  But I can understand why some folks
make the opposite choice.

By the way, a partial answer to the original poster's question is to
look at the various GNAT packages, such as SNOBOL.  I have no idea
whether they do what you want, but they do some kinds of string
manipulation.  They may be compiler dependent, or they may be useful
with other compilers.

- Bob