Parametrized new() expects "identifier"

Question

I found the following code in an old document (1977!) and need to run it. However I get the following error message from FreePascal (2.6.4, Win64) at the first 'new':

(14, 9) Fatal: Syntax error, "identifier" expected but "TRUE" found

According to this('new') and this('record'), it should work, but it doesn't. Any suggestions?

program prog(input, output);
type ptr = ^node;
  node = record position: 1 .. 512; fathers: array [0.. 4] of ptr;
    case (* internal: *) boolean of
      true: (ub: (minus, undef, plus);
        left, right: 0..5;
        rank: 0.. 4);
      false: (present: boolean; pred, succ: ptr);
      end;

procedure initialize(level: integer);
var v: ptr;
begin if level > 0 then
  new(v,true)
else
  new(v,false);
end

Answer 1

In your code you're calling the New procedure passing boolean values into its second parameter which for Free Pascal compiler signals to choose this overload:

procedure New(var P: Pointer; Cons: TProcedure);

which is used for allocating objects, where the second Cons parameter is used for passing the object's constructor method. So in this case the compiler was expecting a method, not a boolean value.

Since you are not allocating objects but records, you can call the New procedure just this way:

New(v);