Re: Initialization Params for Controlled Types

[je@unix.brighton.ac.uk (John English)]

Tucker Taft (stt@spock.camb.inmet.com) wrote:
: For a limited object, it is also generally reasonable
: to call an explicit initialization procedure with any number
: of parameters.  Again, the primary goal of Initialize is to
: provide *default* initialization.  Explicit parameterized 
: initialization can be performed in other ways (via functions
: or procedures).

There is one subtle danger with using procedures as "constructors".
Imagine the following:
  type BankAccount is tagged private;
  procedure Open (Account : in out BankAccount;
		  Name    : in String);

Here Open opens a bank account in a particular name.  Now if you
derive a new type CurrentAccount from BankAccount to produce a
BankAccount that allows overdrafts, you might have this:
  type CurrentAccount is new BankAccount with private;
  procedure Open (Account   : in out CurrentAccount;
		  Name      : in String;
		  Overdraft : in Money);

Here's where the danger is: the first procedure (Open for BankAccount)
is a primitive of BankAccount and will be inherited by CurrentAccount.
It's therefore possible to initialise a CurrentAccount as if it were
a BankAccount, which might leave the overdraft limit uninitialised:
  C : CurrentAccount;
  ...
  Open (C, "Fred Bloggs");  -- oops!

Okay, you can provide a default overdraft limit of 0.00, so this is
not an entirely convincing example; the point is that there is a
danger here which is non-obvious, since you might forget that there
is a second Open for CurrentAccounts which is provided due to inheritance.
C++ sidesteps this problem by making constructors non-inheritable.
The only way to accomplish this in 9X is to make sure that Open isn't
a primitive (e.g. by shoving it in a child package) which is fairly
painful.

-- 
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John English                    | Thoughts for the day:
Dept. of Computing              | - People who live in windowed environments
University of Brighton          |   shouldn't cast pointers
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