Xref: utzoo comp.lang.modula2:775 comp.lang.misc:1436
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!diku!dkuug!daimi!erja
From: erja@daimi.UUCP (Erik Jacobsen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Modula2's godawful IO.
Message-ID: <1418@daimi.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 88 11:21:26 GMT
References: <764@ndsuvax.UUCP> <535@m10ux.UUCP> <560@taux01.UUCP>
Reply-To: erja@saturn.UUCP (Erik Jacobsen)
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Lines: 29
Keywords: NEW, DISPOSE, ALLOCATE, DEALLOCATE


The NEW/DISPOSE-procedures in MODULA-2 are special in the sense that
they can't be written as normal procedures. The compiler translates
statements with NEW/DISPOSE into appropriate calls to ALLOCATE/DEALLOCATE.
ALLOCATE/DEALLOCATE must be available procedures, usually imported
from Storage.

A PASCAL-like write-procedure, with a variable number of parameters with
different types, can't be written as a normal procedure. But in a
similar way the compiler could change a statement like:

     write( some_cardinal , some_string , some_whatever)

into calls to WriteCard, WriteString and WriteWhatever. (Some of these
procedures have extra parameters that must be specified in some way.)

This is in fact the way a PASCAL-compiler works, except the programmer
can't decide which WriteWhatever-procedures to be used.

A change like this seems to be close to the "spirit" of MODULA-2.

Any comments?

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Erik Jacobsen                      erja@daimi.dk
Computer Science Department        Phone:    +45 6 12 71 88 ext. 5226
Aarhus University
DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark
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