Re: Ada enumerations

[Mats Weber <Mats.Weber@elca-matrix.ch>]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Mats Weber said
> 
> <<Isn't Unchecked_Conversion approximately like doing
> 
>    X : Enum;
>    I : Integer;
> 
>    for I'Address use X'Address;
> >>
> 
> OUCH! I sure hope not, that would be a horrible approach for scalars, since
> it would force them into memory. It is hard to believe any compiler is that
> stupid, but you never know.

I didn't mean to force the stuff into memory, I just meant "in effect" (I said
"approximately like").

> In practice, all the compilers I have worked with do the sensible thing
> when converting scalar types, i.e. zero or sign extend as appropriate,
> and truncate at the most significant end if necessary. This is most
> certainly what GNAT does.

But only when the sizes are different, right ? For instance, if I convert a
32-bit integer to a 32-bit packed record of 4 bytes, I will get MSB first on a
big endian machine and LSB first on a little endian machine ?