Re: parent package referring to child

[eliben <eliben@gmail.com>]

On Oct 10, 11:07 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm.tsoh
+bauh...@maps.futureapps.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 23:23 -0700, eliben wrote:
> > Hello,
>
> > I have a package FOO that encapsulates a large part of the system. Now
> > I need to add to it a public type (that should be visible by external
> > code) with a lot of enumerated names (hundreds). I don't want to fill
> > the spec of FOO with this huge type, so I thought it would be a good
> > idea to create a subpackage: FOO.Names, and place the type there.
> > However, declarations of subprograms in the spec of FOO must refer to
> > the names from FOO.Names, and Ada 95 won't let me do that because it's
> > parent referring to child.
>
> You can replicate the type as a derived type in FOO and create
> the Names package as a normal package:
>
>   type Twin is new Names.Huge;
>

True, but this would make Names and FOO seem unrelated, which they're
not. It would be a shame.

> Another possibility is to rearrange the package hierarchy so
> that FOO can become a sibling of Names.
>

Why does it make sense that two siblings can see each other in their
specs when they "with" each other, but a parent can't see a child ?

Eli