From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,18f7f6e041b3e0bf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-08-15 02:31:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Information Systems Annex was RE: Dispatching and generics - language lawyer question Date: 15 Aug 2002 02:31:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5ee5b646.0208150131.7c03036d@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.38.14 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1029403902 8978 127.0.0.1 (15 Aug 2002 09:31:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Aug 2002 09:31:42 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28054 Date: 2002-08-15T09:31:42+00:00 List-Id: "Robert C. Leif" wrote in message news:... > Since virtually all of these decimal types will be > intermediates in a > calculation, they could all have the same number of > digits. I really have no idea what the above means. > The delta is > the problem. Ditto > My crude workaround was to turn a non-static number into > a static number by either a pragma or a method. And double ditto here. Robert please explain at least vaguely what you have in mind. What on earth does it mean to turn a non-static number into a static number. You are certainly not using the term static in the Ada sense, or in any other common sense that I can guess. > However, I would be happy > with a decimal floating type. This seems to be of very marginal use to me. Certainly not something to build into the language. If you need such a facility, just program it, that's easy enough, Yes, it will be inefficient, but no more or less inefficient than if it is put in the language, since obviously no machines support this at the hardware level, and all the compiler would do is call runtime routines anyway. So all you are talking about here is a minor bit of syntactic convenience for a feature with very limited use. Hardly a good candidate for a language extension.