Re: Ada exception block does NOT work?

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

On 20 Aug 2005 17:34:51 -0400, Robert A Duff wrote:

> I'd use "Integer" for what Lisp calls "bignums" -- integers that can
> grow without bound (except of course you can run out of memory,
> but that's true of Strings and whatnot, too.  I'd call the integer type
> that is based on the hardware (e.g. 32-bit integers) "Machine_Integer".
> And I wouldn't put it in a package called "Standard" and I wouldn't
> make it automatically visible everywhere.
> 
> I think one ought to be allowed to say:
> 
>     type T is range 1..10**100;

But that wouldn't be an "integer" you have described! What you want seems
to me rather the Universal_Integer:

X : Universal_Integer;
   -- No overflows, ever. Storage_Error instead

subtype T is Universal_Integer range 1..10**100;
   -- No overflows in any numerical operations, only when value is stored

> Portably.

Sure!

I think it wouldn't be that difficult to do, I mean to expose
Universal_Integer. However range checks might be tricky to do without
overhead. The memory required to keep bounds might be bigger than all
actual values! Though it is unlikely that somebody would really need to
constrain Universal_Integer by 10**100 instead of using the base type.

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