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From: John English <je@bton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: if statements
Date: 2000/11/08
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Ken Garlington wrote:
> 
> "John English" <je@bton.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:3A0824BB.14ACCA12@bton.ac.uk...
> : Ken Garlington wrote:
> : > Personally, I would have gone with something more along the lines of
> : >
> : > generic
> : >    type Value is private;
> : >    with function ">"(A, B : Value) return Boolean is <>;
> : > procedure Homework_Assignment(A, B : in out Value);
> : >
> : > -- Exchange is defined in the Ada Reference Manual
> : > with Exchange;
> : > procedure Homework_Assignment(A, B : in out Value) is
> : >    procedure Swap is new Exchange(Value);
> : > begin
> : >    if A > B then
> : >       Swap(A,B);
> : >    end if;
> : > end Homework_Assignment;
> : >
> : > Can't you imagine how pleased the instructor will be to find out that
> the
> : > student has already mastered generics?
> :
> : Unfortunately this sort of question gets marked by an automated
> : system, so the robotic instructor in question will, I'm afraid,
> : be deeply unimpressed. ;-)
> 
> Would it mark it as correct? If the original question was
> 
>   "Exercise 4.1: Write an if statement which will swap the values of
>    variables A and B if necessary so that the smaller value ends up in
>    A and the larger value ends up in B."
> 
> I actually think my solution is a more excruciatingly correct answer,
> compared to the "obvious" solution. In particular, the types of the
> variables are not specified, so the solution shouldn't assume one - right?

The robot embeds the submitted solution in a skeletal test program
and runs it against a set of test data. The test program happens
to declare A, B and T as Integer, but that's irrelevant (any non-limited
type would do as well).

The only problem with your solution is that the question asks for
a bare statement; your solution would be embedded inside a block,
so it would fail to compile without some extra work...

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