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From: vrm@babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu (Vasile R. Montan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Variable length arrays in Pascal--can it be done?
Message-ID: <1614@babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 91 00:41:52 GMT
References: <13102@goofy.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu
Lines: 34

From article <13102@goofy.Apple.COM>, by mitch@Apple.COM (Mitchell Adler):
[Deleted posting in which I ask whether you can SetHandleSize on
an array as long as you're careful not to read/write past the end
of the block] 
> Umm..not quite. Pascal is defined to Range Check at RUN time. That is,
> if you access outside of the declared range it's a runtime error. So
> as long as your dynamic array is smaller than your declared array,
> you'd be OK for the range checking (assuming you don't write outside
> the actual size of the array, as you said). But if you ever tried to
> write to a location beyond the end of your declared size, you'd get a
> runtime error.
> 
> MPW Pascal (and I believe Think Pascal also), have the ability to turn off
> runtime range checking. You'll need to turn it off everywhere you index
> into your dynamic array.

I've gone ahead and used the technique, but I am running into a problem
of a different kind.  I'd like to be able to define an array as, say,
MyArrayType = array[0..32000] of SomeType, since 32000 is a lot bigger
than I will ever need.  Unfortunately, the Lightspeed Pascal Compiler
(which is what I'm stuck with) gives it a thumbs-down and says "Variables
of this type would be too large."  It seems the biggest range possible
is around [0..125], which may not be big enough for what I need.

Don't some versions of Pascal allow you to declare a range as [0..0]
to solve this problem?  Lightspeed takes this to mean that your array
has only one element, number 0, and gives a range error if you refer,
say, number 1.

So how do I turn off range checking in Lightspeed Pascal?  Any
ideas?

--Kurisuto
un020070@vaxa.wvnet.edu