Re: Ada.strings.bounded problems?

[ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen)]

In article <3g3k5c$7bu@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
writes: 

|> Try the excercise if you like of stating a clean rule that forbids the
|> "goodenough trick", and does not take away other useful functionality.

Easy enough, if you want to do it.  Add to the end of RM83 12.3.6(1): 

   If the designator of the formal subprogram is "=", then the
   actual subprogram must be an equality operator.

This plugs the loophole in RM83 6.7(5), which states that a renaming
declaration for an equality operator can only rename another equality
operator.  Generic formal parameters are supposed to act like renamings
of the corresponding generic actual parameters, but this property of
renaming declarations was overlooked.

("Legitimate" users of generic formal functions named "=" would have to
use names like Equal instead.  I don't count that as a loss of useful
functionality.)


--
Norman H. Cohen    ncohen@watson.ibm.com