Re: ada and final/sealed classes

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 13 Oct 2004 05:38:32 -0700, Hans Van den Eynden wrote:

> I want to prevent that someone inherits from a type I made (for
> security purposes).

1. When the public view of the type is untagged, then it is impossible to
extend it publicly:

package Foo is
   type Final is private;
   procedure Baz (Object : Final);
private
   type Final is tagged null record;

Only children of the package Foo know that Final is tagged. Therefore:

with Foo;
package Unrelated is
   type Illegal is new Foo.Final with null record; -- Error

2. A less brutal approach: a) The primitive operations can be made private;
b) other operations, especially class-wide ones, are always "final":

package Foo is
   type Has_Secret_Methods is tagged ...;
   procedure Final (Object : in out Has_Secret_Methods'Class);
private
   procedure Secret (Object : in out Has_Secret_Methods);

Here Final is a class-wide procedure. As such it cannot be overridden.
Secret is not visible for public clients and so cannot be overridden by
those.

3. For happy owners of ergonomic keyboards: you can always use aggregation.
However the language will not help you in creating wrappers, so train your
fingers:

package Private_Foo is
   type Unsealed is tagged ...;
   procedure Baz (X : Unsealed);
end Private_Foo;

with Private_Foo;
package Public_Foo is
   type Sealed is private; -- non-tagged wrapper
   procedure Baz (X : Sealed); -- Proxy
   pragma Inline (Baz);
private
   use Private_Foo;
   type Sealed is record
      Thing : Unsealed;
   end record;
----
   procedure Baz (X : Sealed) is
   begin
      Baz (X.Thing);
   end Baz;

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de