Xref: utzoo comp.os.vms:5866 comp.lang.pascal:851
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Quoted string parameters in VAX Pascal?
Message-ID: <3167@enea.se>
Date: 30 Apr 88 22:17:33 GMT
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
Lines: 30

George Elkins (elkins@elbereth.rutgers.edu) writes:
>Is there a way in VAX Pascal to define a procedure that will take
>a variable length quoted string as a parameter?  
>...
>     foo ('This is a string of any length');  {User-written procedure foo}

Normally I should have used mail, but Christopher Chiesa messed things
up in his article, so I take it officially if someone else got confused.

The answer to your question is: Yes. Simple do as below:
   PROCEDURE Foo(Str : PACKED ARRAY(. Low..High : integer .) OF char);
or if you prefer the varying strings Chiesa told you of:
   PROCEDURE Foo(Str : VARYING(. Len .) OF char);
This is known as a conformant array. Low, High and Len are available
as constants (actually I don't know whether you can modify them)
in Foo. If your procedure takes more than one string parameter,
be sure to use different names for the bounds (like Low1, Low2 etc),
since your parameters are not likely to be of the same length.

>Is this possible or conceivable in VAX Pascal?  (I'll admit that I haven't
>consulted the documentation.  I don't have easy access to it.)

Have you tried HELP PASCAL? I don't know exactly under which subtopic
you should look to learn about conformant arrays and varying strings,
but the PASCAL entry under HELP does give a condensed version of the 
manual, so the info you need should be there.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog        "No protection on a motor-bike, then
ENEA Data, Stockholm      Sooner or later, that normal traffic's gonna get you"
sommar@enea.UUCP          -- Peter Hammill