Re: Q: Dynamically testing type of any variable

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

In article <4ov0miINN99m@snoopy.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
dgibson@snoopy.cis.ohio-state.edu (david scott gibson) writes: 

|> Hi.  Is there any way to determine the type of an arbitrary Ada95
|> variable at runtime?  Inside a generic unit, I'd like to test if a
|> generic formal has been instantiated with a scalar type, and then if
|> so, initialize it to some valid representation.  It doesn't appear
|> that the 'Class or 'Valid attributes help much since neither is
|> defined for all types.  Also, I'd prefer not using any exception
|> trickery to deal with this.  Any ideas?

This is a peculiar requirement.  Can you give us a better idea of what
you are trying to accomplish?

If your template is doing things with objects of your generic formal type
that are improper for uninitialized scalars, and if a particular
invocation of a particular instance actually does these things to
uninitialized scalars, why do you want to mask the error behind an
arbitrary "valid" value?

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