Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: String lengths
Message-ID: <15907@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 89 03:58:42 GMT
References: <762@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> <28200270@mcdurb>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 22

More or less incidentally: it is easy to build counted strings out
of C strings, if you prefer counts.  For instance:

	typedef struct string {
		int	len;
		char	*str;
	} string;

	#define STRING(s) { sizeof(s) - 1, s }

	string foo = STRING("foo");

In pANS C this works for automatic variables as well as statics.
These strings are not normal expressions, though, and cannot be
anonymous---that is,

	result = some_string_function(str, STRING("lima beans"))

is illegal (though gcc has an extension that will do it).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris