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From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hibou57_=28Yannick_Duch=EAne=29?=
 <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Hiding the value of Constants
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 03:41:21 -0700 (PDT)
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Date: 2009-07-07T03:41:21-07:00
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On 7 juil, 11:41, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de> wrote:
> I'm assuming you do not want the value to be
> visible neither in the private part nor in the
> public part of the package specification?
>
> Use a function then, and make the package pure,
> if possible:
>
> package P is
>
> =A0 pragma pure;
>
> =A0 type Thing is ...;
>
> =A0 function My_Constant return Thing;
>
> =A0 pragma Inline(My_constant);
>
> end P;
>
> Chances are that the compiler might be able to
> act as if My_Constant was a simple constant.

As some one are talking about Funny_Types, here is a funny thing
(thinking about it when I saw this solution) : Ada defines enumeration
contants as parameterless functions (just like you propose for these
constants).

RM 2005 3.5.1 says:
> 6 {enumeration literal} Each enumeration_literal_specification is the
> explicit declaration of the corresponding enumeration literal: it
> declares a parameterless function, whose defining name is the
> defining_identifier or defining_character_literal, and whose result
> type is the enumeration type.

But this is with some restrictions (ex. one may not get the adress of
such a function)

This has some conscequences on the name resolution of an enumeration
literal reference vs of a constant reference. Sometimes I wish both
will be one day handled the same (enumeration literals and constants)