Re: Assigning the value of a deferred constant?

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

Ted Dennison wrote:

> In article <d7abqt09p6i75u5nf014dbge4o11a0534r@4ax.com>, Juanma Barranquero
> says...
>
> >And vaguely related: Is there any way to declare a deferred constant
> >and assign its value in the body of the declaring package, during
> >elaboration? Something like:
>
> Sure. Declare it as a function instead of a constant.

Ted makes an important point.   Except for limited types, deferred constants
should be promoted to functions.   In fact, it seems this is now a good policy
for most named numbers and declared values.   This leverages one of the
more powerful aspects of Ada:  the ability to defer the implementation of
a value to the body of a package.   It also goes a long way towared satisfying
the principle of referential transparency.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com