Re: Parameterised 'Image Attributes

[Stephen Davies <joviangm@gmail.com>]

On Friday, 25 August 2023 at 08:26:08 UTC+1, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 2023-08-24 21:59, Stephen Davies wrote: 
> > How about an attribute called something like User_Image 
> > where programmers should make no assumption about the 
> > generated strings and implementations can provide 
> > OS-specific ways to customise things like leading 
> > space/plus/neither, decimal separator character, digit 
> > grouping character/spacing, exponential notation, enum 
> > casing, etc.
> How anything can be implemented without making assumptions = specifications?
The reason that the existing 'Image cannot be changed is that it would
break existing software that replies upon knowledge about the generated
string, e.g. Integer'Image(Year)(2..5).
So the programmer could use 'User_Image to generate a display string
that will be formatted to the users preferences without knowing
(or being able to make assumptions about) those preferences,
e.g. Put_Line ("The result is " & Result'User_Image)