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From: rlk@rational.com (Bob Kitzberger)
Subject: Re: Debug code
Date: 1996/03/15
Message-ID: <4icema$opi@rational.rational.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 142900613
references: <1996Mar14.223326.13730@nosc.mil>
organization: Rational Software Corporation
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-03-15T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Kelly J. Grant (grantk@manta.nosc.mil) wrote:

: I'm also a big fan of providing methods like  Show( title, value ),
: with overloads for various types to use for displaying values, such as
: integer, string and boolean.  Leave all this code in during
: development, and when you deliver, you could replace the package debug
: body with no-op functions (with a pragma INLINE), and you then won't
: pay a performance penalty.  It is also handy to add a defaulted parameter
: at the end with a boolean to indicate whether or not to add a new_line
: for times when you want multiple values on the same line.

Along a similar vein... I find it useful to define a Image function
for ADTs:

  package Pencil is
    type Object is private;
    function Image( The_Object : Object ) return String;
  ...

Force of habit, it usually only takes a minute to write an Image
function for a new ADT, and it comes in surprisingly handy
for inclusion in a debug setup like you describe above.  I find
defining a function that returns a string is more flexible than
defining a subprogram that writes to stdout, e.g.

--
Bob Kitzberger	      Rational Software Corporation       rlk@rational.com