[Info-vax] String handling, was: Re: C... the only winning move is not to play...

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <ldnqvk$4vd$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>On 2014-02-15, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
>> In article <ldnnn6$ji6$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>>
>>>For comparison, Ada has a half-way datatype, between fixed length and
>>>fully dynamic strings, called Bounded_String in which space up to a
>>>maximum length is pre-allocated but it's otherwise treated as a
>>>dynamic string.
>>
>> That's a fixed length string in my view.  Think VMS string descriptor here.
>> The storage is allocated to the amount bounded and that memory is made the
>> pointer in the descriptor.  The only thing then that changes is the length.
>>
>
>Is VMS Basic's fixed length string really the same as a Bounded_String
>(with a dynamic length component) ?
>
>I'm more used to something described as a fixed length string really
>being a immutable length (think Ada's String data type as a example here).
>
>For example, I don't mentally think of "unsigned char buffer[80];" as
>being a fixed length string. I think of it as more like a Bounded_String
>but with a length indicated by a special character (0x00) instead of
>a explicit length.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/5936/5936pro_001.html

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