According to Kim Robert Blix:

When it comes to compability on the issue of strings, would'nt it be natural to call the short string version just "string" and the long one "longstr", instead of the other way around?

This would break compatibility to the Extended Pascal standard.

But it could be reasonable to do it like you wrote in `--ucsd-pascal' and `--borland-pascal' mode.

What about the following: Make `LongString' denote Extended Pascal string schemata, and `ShortString' denote UCSD/Borland Pascal strings; let `String' be the same as `LongString' in default mode but the same as `ShortString' in Borland Pascal mode; finally introduce more options `--short-strings' and `--long-strings' to change these defaults?

Another idea, perhaps even better: let "String ( 255 )" or "LongString ( 255 )" denote an Extended Pascal (long) string, but "String [ 255 ]" or "ShortString [ 255 ]" an UCSD Pascal (short) string? Like this, both Extended Pascal and Borland Pascal programs will just compile. Needless to say that `--extended-pascal' will switch off "String [ 255 ]" and `--borland-pascal' will switch off "String ( 255 )" ...

Anyway, this is a long-term plan.

Greetings,

Peter

Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201] maintainer GNU Pascal [970420] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]