Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!yarra!pta!teti!teslab!andrew
From: andrew@teslab.lab.OZ (Andrew Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: C string library?
Message-ID: <1206@teslab.lab.OZ>
Date: 20 Feb 91 06:41:23 GMT
References: <874@cbmger.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrew@teslab.lab.oz.au (Andrew Phillips)
Organization: Technology Evaluation Section, L.A.B., Sydney
Lines: 31

In <874@cbmger.UUCP> by peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel) writes:
> [Idea to (re?)write C string routines to look like BASIC ones]

You couldn't rewrite the standard string routines (strcpy, strcat
etc) to work like the BASIC ones but you could write a new set of
routines to do exactly what BASIC does (I think I heard of someone
doing that a long time ago).

Actually you would be much better off using C++.  Then you could
use your own string type in code like:

	str a, b, c;

	a = "Name: ";	-- assign C string to "str" type
	putstr(a);	-- output of str
	b = getstr();	-- input of str
	c = a + b;	-- concatenation of str

by having a string type which would be a sort of pointer to a real
string and overloading operators "+", "=" etc.

Most C programmers prefer the standard C string routines because they
know what they are doing exactly internally whereas the BASIC ones
are a bit unknown/unpredictable, especially when they decide to do a
bit of garbage collection.  I have a whole lot of string routines
that I wrote that make using normal C strings a lot easier.  If
anybody is interested in them I could get them posted to c.s.a.

Andrew.
-- 
Andrew Phillips (andrew@teslab.lab.oz.au) Phone +61 (Aust) 2 (Sydney) 289 8712