[M3devel] question on File.Status.size

[Jay K]

 > NUMBER(array) to yield a LONGCARD

  This can't be.
  Arrays are in-memory data structures. 
  INTEGER/CARDINAL are an appropriate type
  to hold the size of something fits in memory/address-space.
  INTEGER is like C's ptrdiff_t. 
  CARDINAL is kind of like C's size_t, except it is half range. 
  Word.T is kind of like C's size_t, except it has no convenient in-fix operators. 


  Files commonly do not fit in memory/address-space. 
  So they arguably should have their size stored 
  in a larger type.


 I think there is no easy answer here.


 I would be ok with:
   - put it back to INTEGER/CARDINAL 
   - expose another way new way to get a LONGCARD 
 

 - Jay




From: rcolebur at SCIRES.COM
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 22:59:35 +0000
Subject: [M3devel] question on File.Status.size







I've been trying to rebuild all my developed software using my newly rebuilt cm3 from the HEAD branch.



I've run into some new build errors and have a question.



It seems the type of File.Status.size has been changed to LONGCARD.



I have some code that now fails to build because of this change.



I suppose this interface change is an attempt to better deal with files whose size in bytes is larger than MAX(CARDINAL).



So, for example:

   fs := FS.Status(file);

   INC(numBytes, fs.size);

no longer works if numBytes is defined as a CARDINAL.  Of course, I can change its type to be LONGCARD, but there will be a ripple effect throughout the code.



Has the language definition also been updated to allow NUMBER(array) to yield a LONGCARD ?

(Interface File uses open arrays)



In my old language definition, it says that:


An open array type declaration has the form: 

    TYPE T = ARRAY OF Element

where Element is any type. The values of T are arrays whose element type is
Element and whose length is arbitrary. The index type of an open array is the
INTEGER subrange [0..n-1], where n is the length of the array.

In the past NUMBER(x) always yielded a CARDINAL, not a LONGCARD.  So, if this has changed, I'll need to do some more updates across my code base.



How does one know in advance if NUMBER(x) is going to yield a CARDINAL or a LONGCARD value, esp. for open arrays?



Thanks,

Randy Coleburn



 		 	   		  
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