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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!princeton!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C strings
Message-ID: <7040@alice.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Jul-87 08:43:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.7040
Posted: Wed Jul  1 08:43:50 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jul-87 00:41:27 EDT
References: <6480@dartvax.UUCP> <1202@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> <223@sugar.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 22

In article <223@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP writes:
> That is implementation dependent. They may also do such things as store
> a byte length at the address, or even store a value *before* the address
> passed. They may not even have a length you can use at all, if it's an
> old Fortran.

It is difficult and unnecessary for a Fortran 77 compiler that conforms
to the ANSI standard to store a length with a character string.

It is unnecessary because the length of every string is known to
the compiler as a constant, except for parameters.  Parameters must
be handled specially anyway, because they can be temporaries.

It is difficult because the language defines the meaning of things like:

	CHARACTER A*10, B*10, C*20
	COMMON A, B
	EQUIVALENCE (A, C)

so that the first 10 characters of C are equivalent to the 10 characters
of A and the next 10 characters of C are equivalent to the 10 characters
of B.  It's hard to do this and still store a count.