Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sjsca4!annapurna!grimesg
From: grimesg@annapurna (George Grimes)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Another various question about TP 5.0
Message-ID: <1989Dec6.211845.23824@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 6 Dec 89 21:18:45 GMT
References: <303@usna.MIL> <1017@dutrun.UUCP>
Reply-To: grimesg@annapurna.UUCP (George Grimes)
Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA
Lines: 52

>In article <303@usna.MIL> baldwin@cad.usna.mil (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>Is there a good, clean way to convert the value of an enumerated ordinal
>type to a string value?
>
>That is, what does the function ConverterFunction(somevalue:sometype) : string
>look like in this fragment:
>
>    type veggies = (carrots, limabeans, beets, toadstools);  . . .
>    var  whatveg : veggies; . . .
>
>    whatveg := carrots;
>    . . .
>    writeln(ConverterFunction(whatveg));
>
>so that the writeln statement will output the string "carrots"?  This question
>is not exactly mission-critical to me, but an answer would be nice.  If 
>replies are by e-mail, I'll summarize.

On the VAX you can just do 

writeln(whatveg); 

and VAX Pascal will take care of the conversion to a string automatically.
Likewise, if you have

readln(whatveg);

your user can enter "carrot" and conversion to the proper ordinal is automatic.

When I first bought Microsoft Pascal in 1982, the manual showed an example like
this.  After I bought it and got it home I found the obscure reference in an
appendix that said that this feature was not implemented yet.  When I called 
and asked about it, they said that this feature would be available very soon.
The last time I called and asked about this (about the fourth call I think)
a year or two ago, I was still assured that this would happen 'real soon 
now'.

It's a nice feature and I'd love to have it on my PC.

George

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