[fpc-pascal] Weird string behavior

[Michael Schnell]

On 07/26/2016 04:19 PM, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
>
> This is not correct. In pascal the right-hand side of an assignment 
> has a well-defined type. The compiler checks whether the type on the 
> right is assignment-compatible to the left side.

Hmm.

if you do

x := y + z;

with x a real and y and z integers, the type of x will not change to be 
an integer, but the value will be converted.


Now I understand that with strings the encoding is a kind of "sub-type" 
and hence (usually) static and not convertible to allow for the compiler 
do decide if a conversion is necessary.

This has been discussed a long time ago and the argument was that 
_fully_ dynamically typed  strings are to costly regarding CPU demand.

I did not get to know that those design decision has been changed for 
the normal usage case (while there seems to be ways to sue certain kinds 
of strings in a fully dynamical way) .

Changing the encoding of the left side operand of ":=" would only be 
logical if the encoding is never an attribute to the string's type but 
always a dynamical attribute to the string's content.

-Michael.