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From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Subject: p(x: out File_Type)
Date: 1996/12/02
Message-ID: <57u5ik$qdc$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 201842069
organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
nntp-posting-user: ok
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-12-02T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Does

	procedure P(...; X: out File_Type)

ever make sense, where File_Type is one of the standard file types
(from Sequential_IO, Direct_IO, or Text_IO)?

I can find no standard procedures with parameters like that in the
Ada 95 LRM.  I do not want to use them myself.  I don't _think_ they
make sense.

But writing
	procedure P(...; X: out File_Type)
when they mean
	procedure P(...; X: in out File_Type)
is a common mistake that our CS1 students make, and they compiler
they use quietly gulps it down with no indication that it is odd.

-- 
Govt saves money by cutting legal aid, guilty plea rates soar;
poverty is a crime!  (See also recent Sci.Am.)
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok; RMIT Comp.Sci.