Re: Ada 95 LRM Error?

[Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com>]

Richard D Riehle wrote about Interfaces.Cobol:
> 
>  As it is, the package is defined so it conforms to the conventions of
>  typical COBOL programming.
> 

But if I put non-numeric data into a Numeric, it will flunk the
Valid() test, right?

Since you speak of 'typical COBOL programming', can you enlighten me a 
little about why this interface looks the way it does?  

For example, the To_Binary(Num, Binary_Format)  function returns a
Byte_Array and not a Binary, and there is no corresponding
To_Long_Binary.  It looks like To_Binary decides what length of
Byte_Array to give back based on the digits of Num. I suppose that
the compiler can figure this all out at compile time, since digits
is static, but it seems a little odd that the size of a Byte_Array is
never really set anywhere in the visible code, but the subtype returned 
from To_Binary depends on Num's digits. It's also a little confusing
that there are 2 binary types, ie Binary and Long_Binary, but that in
GNAT, for example, the return values from To_Binary, come in four
different sizes (I think).

That the Binary_Format doesn't specify the field size also makes it a
little hard to be consistent with the Cobol code I know about, which
allows a compile time switch to indicate whether or not a number with
fewer than 3 digits uses one or two bytes. Here Interfaces.Cobol decides
that for me behind the scenes.

Thanks for your assistance, Richard.

Al