Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!sdcrdcf!csun!csuna!abcscnuk
From: abcscnuk@csuna.UUCP (Naoto Kimura)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Sun Pascal bug?
Message-ID: <1085@csuna.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 88 17:26:23 GMT
References: <14411@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Reply-To: abcscnuk@csuna.UUCP (Naoto Kimura)
Organization: California State University, Northridge
Lines: 47
Summary: Nope, it isn't a bug

In article <14411@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> vinson@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Michael Vinson) writes:
>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:

There's nothing wrong with your compiler.   You can't read strings from
a text file.

>...
>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.

But you have to... in standard pascal that is

>If you can't read strings from a text file, which includes standard
>input, what can you read them from?)
>
>Michael Vinson

You *might* be able to read strings (declared as packed array of char)
from a file of the string type, though you might get some pretty weird stuff
if the file is not of a fixed-format type.

You should also make sure that you use "flush" (if there is such a procedure
in the pascal you use) after using a "write" to output your prompt, otherwise
your prompt may not appear before it waits for input.   What's really fun is
when your prompt appears in the middle of typing your response (this happens
with the Berkeley compliler "pc" when you forget to use "flush" after writing
out the prompt.  If you use writeln, usually there is no problem).   You may
still get some problems, especially if you use "eof" or "eoln" before your
write, because the computer will wait for a character (to check for eof or eoln)
then do the write, sometimes, the implicit get at the beginning will cause this
strange behavior.  There aren't any problems like this when you run the program
as a batch job.

                //-n-\\				Naoto Kimura
        _____---=======---_____			(csun!csuna!abcscnuk)
    ====____\   /.. ..\   /____====
  //         ---\__O__/---        \\	Enterprise... Surrender or we'll
  \_\                            /_/	send back your *&^$% tribbles !!

P.S.:	If you ever wonder why eoln and eof exist, try using a CDC.
	Eoln is signaled by two zero bytes aligned at a word boundary.
	A zero byte happens to be a colon character.