[fpc-pascal] Re: ReadStr/WriteStr vs Val/Str

[Paul Nicholls]

"Richard Ward" <roward at mac.com> wrote in message 
news:6707D87E-2EA6-4469-97A5-CF55D1A04AA7 at mac.com...
As a user of the old Macintosh Pascal (later THINK Pascal),  both ReadStr 
and WriteStr functions were included and I used them quite a bit.   The 
names were different but the FPC implementation is basically the same as far 
as I can tell.

Besides backward compatibility, portability issues and personal preference, 
is there any functionality Val and Str may have that ReadStr and WriteStr 
don't?  I can't see any, but wanted to make sure there there were no subtle 
technical issue(s) I might need to consider.

Thank you for implementing these functions. 
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Hi Richard,
 I don't know about the Macintosh Pascal ReadStr and WriteStr routines 
(never used them), but a 'possible' gotcha is that I think the Str() 
function will append a space at the beginning of a value to leave room for 
the sign if negative...

if you don't want that then you can use the Format routine instead:

Integer to string:
s := Format('%d',[<some integer number>]);

float to string:
s := Format('%.4f',[<some floating point number>]); //formats a floating 
point number to 4 decimal places (just change, or remove if you want 
scientific notation I think)

I hope this helps :)

cheers,
Paul