Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!husc6!spdcc!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Dynamic array dimensioning
Message-ID: <3125@ima.ima.isc.com>
Date: 5 Jan 89 22:17:19 GMT
References: <117400002@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.
Lines: 15

In article <117400002@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>1.  What languages support the run-time array sizing in a particular module
>as in FORTRAN 8x ?  ...

Algol 60 had dynamically sized arrays in 1960, both for arguments and
local arrays.  The techniques to implement them are well known;
consult the Dragon Book or any other compiler book for details.  There
is some loss in performance compared to fixed size arrays since stack
offsets cannot be precomputed at compile time, but you have to trade
that off against the increased flexibility.  Many of Algol's descendants
(other than Pascal) also have such dynamic sizing, the most notable being PL/I.
-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
You're never too old to have a happy childhood.