!standard  4.6  (00)                                  01-09-13  AC95-00011/01
!class uninteresting 01-09-13
!status received 01-09-11
!subject

!summary

!appendix

!topic Aliased components in Interfaces.C.Strings.chars_ptr_array
!reference RM95-B.3.1(6)
!from Florian Weimer 01-09-08
!discussion

The components of arrays of type chars_ptr_array are not aliased.
This means that the chars_ptr_array type cannot be used in
instantiating the generic package Interfaces.C.Pointers.  The latter
seems to be desirable, because representing a list of strings as
consecutive char * values, terminated by a NULL pointer, seems to be
common idiom in C (for an example, see ISO/IEC 9899:1999, section
5.1.2.2.1).

****************************************************************

From: Randy Brukardt
Date: Thursday, September 13, 2001, 3:00 PM

I don't think this is worth bothering with. Chars_Ptr_Array is never used in
the package Interfaces.C.Strings, so there is nothing preventing the user
needing a type like from declaring his own. And then they can declare the
components to be aliased (or anything else they need, for that matter).
(Indeed, I see this type as gratuitous junk - we don't fix junk.)

****************************************************************