Passing strings by value

2 Feb 1998

      Hello,
        Is there something special that needs to be done to pass
strings by value?  

The code below seems to mangle any strings I pass pretty well, when I
would assume it would only mangle the local copy in the function:

program testfunc(output);

var
        aline : string (20) VALUE 'foo|bar|baz';

function countfields(line : string; axis : char) : integer;
var
        count : integer VALUE 0;
begin
        if length(line) > 0 then count := 1;
        while index(line, axis) > 0 do
        begin
                count := count + 1;
                line := substr(line, index(line, axis) + 1);
        end;
        countfields := count;
end;

begin
        writeln(aline);
        writeln(countfields(aline, '|'), ' field(s)');
        writeln(aline);
end.

Under either 971001, or the 980106 alpha I get the following output:

foo|bar|baz
3 field(s)
baz

which is what I would expect if countfields() accepted 'line' as a
VARiable parameter.

-Kevin

--
Kevin A. Foss   ---   kfoss@mint.net
--