Re: How to get Ada to “cross the chasm”?

[Mehdi Saada <00120260a@gmail.com>]

For dictionnaries, you can instantiate ada.strings.bounded ou unbounded, to get a variable-length string, then instantiate Ada.containers.bounded_hashed_maps like this:

first you have to overload the hash function a bit since it takes only the type String.
function Hash(A: your_string_type) is
(ada.string.Hash(To_String(A)));

then you create your hashed map package:
package hashed_maps is new ada.containers.bounded_hashed_maps
(Key_Type => your_string_type, Element_Type => another_string_type, Hash => Ada.string.Hash, Equivalent_Keys => "=");

and there you have your dictionary.
DIct: Map (Nombre_de_mots_max, Default_modulus(Nombre_de_mots_max));

I let you understand the subprograms, but most of them are self-evident, and repeat themselves all over the containers libraries.

Sure, there are no containers aggregates which would make the syntax more natural as in Python, but it's being studied for the next Ada. It doesn't hinder the use so much, though.