Re: Plan to Update GPC

Dear Florian,

It is an honor to hear from you.

> The offer in supporting people to get missing pieces of extended 
> pascal (FPC's ISO support should be pretty complete) supported in
> FPC is still valid.

That is a generous offer.

> But so far only a few tests are produced.

Is there an official format for a test? I'm happy to provide test code. Here is a test of GPC's schema types, of which I make heavy use.

{------------ A Test of Schema Types -----------}
program p;

type
	image_type(j_size,i_size:integer)=record
		intensity:array [0..j_size-1,0..i_size-1] of integer;
		overlay:array [0..j_size-1,0..i_size-1] of integer;
	end;
	image_ptr_type=^image_type;

var
	ip:image_ptr_type;
	i,j,w:integer;
	
begin
   writeln('Schema type test: an image array.');
   write('Enter image width: ');
   readln(w);
   ip:=new(image_ptr_type,w,w);
   for i:=0 to w-1 do
   	for j:=0 to w-1 do
   		ip^.intensity[j,i]:=j*i;
   writeln('Test complete, final value ',j*i);
end.
{------------ End Test of Schema Types -----------}

> All FPC sources are OSS and written in pascal

Really? Gosh. How could I have failed to know that FPC was written in Pascal? Maybe because it sounds too good to be true. Well, that's a significant development for my calculations.

> I decided that a GCC pascal frontend is not the way to go but a 
> pascal compiler in pascal.

You are making a compelling case. Instead of trying to re-write the GPC back-end, my time would be better spent working on the FPC front end so as to get my own code to compile. And I'd be working in Pascal, which would be a pleasure.

> I am still convinced this is the right approach :)

I'm inclined to agree with you.


Best, Kevan

-- 
Kevan Hashemi, Electrical Engineer
Physics Department, Brandeis University
http://www.bndhep.net