If you take the listing and make some minor changes so it looks like:

unit Buff; interface

const MAXLINES = 20000;

type lline = string ( 4000 );

procedure BB_AddLine( Aline: lline ); {adds to end}

implementation { var cap : integer;}

type ptrline = ^Line; Line = string ( );

TbbArray = array[1..MAXLINES] of ptrline;

var BigBuffer : Tbbarray; {array of pointers to data} LineCount : integer = 0;

procedure BB_AddLine( Aline: lline ); begin inc( LineCount ); BigBuffer[ LineCount ] := new( ptrline, length( Aline )); BigBuffer[ LineCount ]^ := Aline; end; end.

Compile the above, you get:

buff.pas:17: parse error before `)' buff.pas:17: missing expression buff.pas:17: warning: missing string capacity - assuming 255 buff.pas: In procedure `Bb_addline': buff.pas:28: too many arguments to `New'

Now, uncomment lines 12,13 so it reads var cap: integer; And add in cap to line 17 so it reads Line = string( cap ); The unit now compiles and works as expected. (creates strings with capacity = length at runtime)

Russ