Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!dptg!pegasus!psrc
From: psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Various Turbo pascal questions
Summary: reading all of a long line at once?
Keywords: Turbo pascal
Message-ID: <4269@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Date: 24 Nov 89 20:30:35 GMT
References: <2185@leah.Albany.Edu> <6972@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 23

> In article <2185@leah.Albany.Edu> ppd491@leah.Albany.Edu (Peter P. Donohue) writes:
> 1) In an external data file (containing all ascii data), what is the
> maximum length of a line allowed? 

In article <1989Nov23.183325.4549@uwasa.fi>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) writes:
> If you use ordinary strings the maximum is only 255 characters.
> You can make it as long as 64K allows by adapting 
>   var line : array [maxlengt] of char;
> There are some good "LongString" routines in O'Brien, Turbo Pascal,
> the Complete Reference.

In article <6972@portia.Stanford.EDU>, gaia@portia.Stanford.EDU (fai to leung) writes:
> I would say 255 characters long.
> Pascal strings format are byte[0]=length of string follow by the ascii chars.

Yes, if you try to read the whole line in at once.  If you read() each
character one at a time, and don't need the whole line in memory at the
same time, is there a limit?  (I would hope not, but TP might do some
internal buffering.)  Peter, you might try this yourself.

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories
att!pegasus!psrc, psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.