Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!hao!oddjob!vinson
From: vinson@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Michael Vinson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Sun Pascal bug?
Message-ID: <14411@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 88 15:24:59 GMT
Reply-To: vinson@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Michael Vinson)
Organization: The James Franck Institute
Lines: 17

I am using Sun UNIX Pascal, and I have a problem that is annoying in
the extreme. The problem is as simple as it is absurd: when I try to
compile a program that read a string (i.e. a packed array of char) from
a text (yes text) file, the compiler tells me "Can't read strings from 
a text file"!!! This is crazy. It means, for example the the following
lines won't work:

var FileName : packed array[1..80] of char;
...
write('Enter file name: ');
readln(FileName);

This is a pain in the *ss! Does anyone have any ideas/solutions/remedies?
(I mean, I can always read in a string one char at a time, but I shouldn't
have to. If you can't read strings from a text file, which includes standard
input, what can you read them from?)

Michael Vinson