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Date:      Thu, 3 Feb 2005 06:54:07 -0600
From:      John <john@starfire.mn.org>
To:        Jay Moore <jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com>
Cc:        Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>
Subject:   Re: Unix equivalent of a variant??
Message-ID:  <20050203065407.B30179@starfire.mn.org>
In-Reply-To: <200502030521.41528.jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com>; from jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com on Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 05:21:41AM -0600
References:  <20050201164337.GA78979@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <200502030521.41528.jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com>

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On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 05:21:41AM -0600, Jay Moore wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 February 2005 10:43 am, Jonathon McKitrick wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> >
> > I'm finally doing something very exciting here at work: porting software to
> > Unix!
> >
> > I need the equivalent of a variant, however.  A hold-everything variable
> > that can be any type in C/C++.  Is there something already out there I can
> > use or should I just roll my own?
> 
> I think you should read and understand MS' documentation on the variant data 
> type before you spend much time trying to code this for *nix.  IIRC, the 
> Variant data type is limited to development environments like "Visual Basic".  
> I'm thinking there must be an awful lot of overhead associated with handling 
> a "Variant" data type, as every use of it must figure out what the "real" 
> datat type is. I don't know what your objective is, and certainly don't 
> pretend to tell you this shouldn't be done, but - just because MS has done 
> it, does not mean it is a good thing to do in general.

Or, just use PERL. :)
-- 

John Lind
john@starfire.MN.ORG



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