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From: sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: net.lang.ada
Subject: Functions and external values
Message-ID: <1346@enea.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Jun-86 13:19:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: enea.1346
Posted: Sat Jun  7 13:19:19 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jun-86 02:05:45 EDT
References: <4000001@nucsrl>
Reply-To: sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog)
Distribution: net
Organization: Enea Data, Sweden
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <4000001@nucsrl> gore@nucsrl.UUCP writes:
>
>Another example:  If only 'in' parameters are allowed in functions, why allow
>access to external variables from inside a function?

Think before you talk, man! Let's say you have a data structure, a table
for example which is totally embedded inside of a package. I.e. neither
the type nor a variable reference is available outside the package. The only
way to change AND achieve data is through procedure and function calls.
So a function reading data from the table, must of course be able to refer
to the table, which, also of course, is declared outside the function. 
You could discuss whether this is a good programming technique, but I use
it regulary, though not in Ada.

Erland Sommarskog
ENEA Data, Stockholm