Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!iuvax!bsu-cs!cfchiesa
From: cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Christopher Chiesa)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: pascal strings
Message-ID: <2864@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 88 17:19:05 GMT
References: <8805021136.AA05274@decwrl.dec.com> <2834@bsu-cs.UUCP> <5302@megaron.arizona.edu>
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 24
Summary: I see what I see

In article <5302@megaron.arizona.edu>, robert@arizona.edu (Robert J. Drabek) writes:
> In article <2834@bsu-cs.UUCP>, cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Christopher Chiesa) writes:

> : I just wanted to point out that in this context, the Vax Pascal LENGTH 
> : function does NOT return the contents of the varying_string ".length" field.
> : It returns the DECLARED SIZE of the particular variable, in this case the 
> : value 255, regardless of the number of "valid characters" actually in the 
> : string.
> 
> 
> Why don't I see this?  I've used this fairly often and it seems I always
> came up with the number of valid characters.

That's a VERY GOOD question!  Perhaps we have different versions or releases
of Vax Pascal?  Although I would think the operation of the LENGTH function 
would not change...

All I can say is that I *always* have to write my OWN "string length" function
when I want to work with type VARYING OF CHAR in Vax Pascal...

C.Chiesa
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