Andy Ball wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> My Pascal book is very old, and makes no mention of string
> datatypes other than an 'array of char'. Were strings part
> of ISO Pascal? What string-related functions were included?
>
> Thanks,
> - Andy Ball.
Neither Wirths original Pascal language, nor ISO 7185 included what
you are referring to as "string" functions, which are actually more
correctly defined as "Basic language string functions". The language
C/C++ does not have string functions either, to this day.
A Basic mode string is a relatively expensive data structure, and often
the same character handling can be done with a simple array of
characters. You can use an array of characters to build up essentially
the same complexity as Basic strings, so you are effectively losing
little.
Adding Basic strings to Pascal was done in UCSD Pascal in the 1970's.
It was certainly a popular feature. However, the positioning of
Pascal as a Pascal+Basic amalgamation certainly didn't help the
image of Pascal as being a professional programmers language.
C never had strings built in, and there have been few complaints,
mostly I suspect because the average C programmer is capable of making
his/her own string handling functions.
--
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