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-Thread: 103376,46a68619f4362304
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.binc.net!kilgallen
From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Specifying parameter passing convention and place (register)
Date: 8 Jul 2004 07:06:15 -0500
Organization: LJK Software
Message-ID: <6Bv31gVVqUnl@eisner.encompasserve.org>
References: <opsaot0qmdp4pfvb@bram-2> <Z027UNncuT4Q@eisner.encompasserve.org>
 <opsap78nn4p4pfvb@bram-2> <$RVvBAOy5BPi@eisner.encompasserve.org>
 <opsarq03jtp4pfvb@bram-2> <6qg+KjvqRKch@eisner.encompasserve.org>
 <opsascnzjtp4pfvb@bram-2>
NNTP-Posting-Host: eisner.encompasserve.org
X-Trace: grandcanyon.binc.net 1089288311 21164 192.135.80.34 (8 Jul 2004
 12:05:11 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: abuse@binc.net
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 12:05:11 +0000 (UTC)
Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2116
Date: 2004-07-08T07:06:15-05:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <opsascnzjtp4pfvb@bram-2>, "Nick Roberts" <nick.roberts@acm.org> writes:
> On 7 Jul 2004 13:54:01 -0500, Larry Kilgallen <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net>  
> wrote:

>> but if you want the following shortcut it is somewhat weirdly
>> named:
>>
>> 	http://h71000.www7.hp.com/commercial/ada/documentation.html
> 
> Well that weird link redirects me to another page, which, believe it or  
> not, is practically the /second/ place I looked! Unfortunately, although  
> this page has links to various bits of Ada documentation, none of that  
> documentation has the information I need. I have looked in the LRM listed  
> there (a PDF file), which lists the implementation-specific pragmas and  
> attributes, but there are neither any pragmas nor any attributes relating  
> to parameter passing mechanisms.

Did you look in section 13.9a of that document ?
In particular, look for the word MECHANISM.

> Do I take it DEC Ada doesn't, in fact, have any such pragmas or attributes?
> 
>> I thought Robert Dewar had stated they were extending the DEC
>> features to their other platforms.
> 
> I don't know, but it doesn't sound very likely that mechanisms relating to  
> VAX/VMS or Alpha/VMS (or VAX/Unix) will be very transferable to other  
> architectures/environments.

Certainly the mechanisms VALUE and REFERENCE are of general use.

The mechanism DESCRIPTOR is only for where a large variety of string
representations are supported on the operating system.  For environments
where data passed between languages will never include bounded strings,
bit strings, non-contiguous arrays, then defaulting to your local form
of DESCRIPTOR for a string starting at offset 1 is adequate.

You could add a mechanism called REGISTER, and if GNAT does this
machine code insertion, I am surprised ACT has not added such a
mechanism.