Complaint re: exception handling

[tynor@pyr.gatech.EDU (Steve Tynor)]

In all the discussion I've seen regarding deficiencies in Ada, I've never
heard anyone complain that it is not possible to determine the type of an
exception being handled by a 'when others' handler.

I believe the Telesoft compiler provides a package that defines a variable
which is set at exception time so the user can report the exception. 

Why doesn't the Ada standard provide this?  It would be extremely useful for
debugging complex exception generating code. For example:

     ...
     exception
	    when others =>
	       PUT_LINE ("### ERROR: Unexpected exception: " & EXCEPTION_NAME &
			 " encountered in PROCEDURE_A");


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
                     
    Steve Tynor
    Georgia Instutute of Technology

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