Re: Surprise in array concatenation

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

Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes:

> In article <wcck6hvnpsm.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com>, Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> writes:
> > "Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam@spam.com> writes:
> > 
> >> Gene wrote:
> >> 
> >> > -- 'First is not always 1.  How marginally
> >> > Ada!
> >> 
> >> 'First is not always 1 (or 0, or X) is a basic concept in Ada. It's only
> >> if you don't know, or forget, this, and assume the behavior you learned
> >> in lesser languages, that you have problems.
> >> 
> >> I came to Ada from Pascal, so I was used to the lower bound not being
> >> fixed,
> > 
> > Heh?  The lower (and upper!) bound of all array types in Pascal is
> > fixed.  And it has to be fixed at a static value.  Every array object of
> > a given type has the same fixed bounds.
> > 
> > (Well, some version of Pascal added conformant arrays, which relaxed
> > this requirement for formal parameters.)
> 
> That is true, in the same sense that some versions of Ada added
> modular types -- they were added to the standard.

Right.  I was being vague because I couldn't remember whether conformant
arrays were added in the first ISO Pascal standard, or the Extended
Pascal version.  I also can't remember the status of Extended Pascal
(was it ever officially blessed by ISO?).  Do you know?

Conformant arrays were certainly not part of the original Pascal as
documented in Jensen and Wirth's book, "Pascal User Manual and Report".
And conformant arrays are only for parameters -- not normal variables,
record components, heap objects, etc.  Correct?

- Bob