Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!amdahl!dlb!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Sun Pascal bug?
Message-ID: <290@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 88 21:20:42 GMT
References: <14411@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 34

in article <14411@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>, vinson@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Michael Vinson) says:
> 
> 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


Quit your whining, for Pete's sake.  You kids got it so easy today.  
Back in '71 I once had to read an intire string ONE BIT AT A TIME.
I was exhausted for a week.

Now go write that GetString procedure.  And don't be so hard on Niklaus Wirth.
He meant well. He just didn't know any better.  I'm sure he's just
sick about this whole conformant array thing.


		Yours truly,

		Richard M. Nixon