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From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA
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Subject: VMS PASCAL question
Message-ID: <5073@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 15:03:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5073
Posted: Mon Feb 25 15:03:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 06:57:33 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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From: John_Aronsson_QZ%QZCOM.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA

VARYING OF CHAR is a predeclared record type in VMS-PASCAL.

Syntax:
    VARYING [upper-bound] OF [attribute-list] CHAR

  upper-bound is an integer in the range from 1 throgh 65535 that
indicates the length of the longest possible string.


VARYING [upper-bound] OF CHAR may be thought of as the record type:

   RECORD
     LENGTH  : [WORD] 0..upper-bound;
     BODY    : PACKED ARRAY [1..upperbound] OF CHAR;
   END;

LENGTH and BODY are predeclared fields in VMS-PASCAL.

Example:

VAR st : VARYING [80] OF CHAR;

BEGIN
  st := 'FOO';
  Writeln(st.length);  (* write 3 *)
  st := 'BLETCH';
  Writeln(st.length);  (* write 6 *)
  Writeln(st);         (* This will just write the 6 characters 'BLETCH' *)
  Writeln(st.body)     (* But this will write 80 characters. Mostly junk. *)
END.