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From: jamesth@microsoft.UUCP (James THIELE)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: constraint error question for language lawyers
Message-ID: <59445@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 30 Nov 90 16:02:32 GMT
References: <9011091437.AA20896@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: jamesth@microsoft.UUCP (James THIELE)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <9011091437.AA20896@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> NCOHEN@IBM.COM ("Norman H. Cohen") writes:
| Alex Blakemore asks why, given the declarations
| 
|   type Short is range 0 .. 10;
|   type Data is array (Short range <>) of Character;
|   type Var_Text (Len : Short := 0) is
|     record
|       Text : Data (1 .. Len);
|     end record;
|   Dummy : Var_Text; -- unconstrained
| 
| the statements
| 
|   Dummy := (Len => 0, Text => "");
|   Dummy := (Len  => Dummy.Len + 1,
|             Text => Dummy.Text & 'a');
| 
| raise Constraint_Error in the second assignment.
| 
[62 lines of "legalese" deleted]

When I worked with Ada, it always seemed that the manual was like the
"Colossal Cave" -- you always had to go several places to get what you needed.

But my favorite comment always was:

	"Ada is PASCAL for lawyers."

James Thiele
microsoft!jamesth