[fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

["Vinzent Höfler"]

Henry Vermaak <henry.vermaak at gmail.com>

> I can't understand what you are trying to say.  An array is a pointer
> to where the elements of the array resides in memory.

No, not in Pascal. In Pascal an array is a variable just like any other: A name for some memory area where values can be stored.

> How else do you think it works?

Just like "a : integer" -> reserve the needed number of bytes and let the programmer access the associated memory via the identifier "a".

> Can you explain what would x[1] mean if it isn't dereferenced?

Access the memory at address of "x + 1 * (size of element)".

Just like you do

array4 : record a1, a2, a3, a4 end;

and access the record members respectively. It's a static address, known at compile time. No dereferencing.

> No, it's not weakened by C-style all of a sudden, it's _always_ been
> like this.

No. Your confusing arrays and pointers. Or maybe, you're confusing Pascal and C.

>  As I've been trying to explain to you, there's no "obscure
> compiler magic", if you put the brackets there, the compiler
> dereferences.

The dereferencing operator in Pascal is "^".


Vinzent.

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