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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,998965b11075593f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: Beginner's question (array parameters to functions) Date: 1998/12/02 Message-ID: <743o56$gsl$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 417885555 References: <365F4360.F7E85C1E@columbia.edu> <73qc0p$24e$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Organization: Computer Science, The University of Melbourne Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-12-02T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Matthew Heaney writes: >fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson) writes: > >> Matthew Heaney writes: >> >> >greg writes: >> >> One requirement of the assignment is that the >> >> sorting be done by a function which takes the array as a parameter and >> >> returns a sorted array. >> ... >> >> is there some way to avoid having to use two arrays? ... >> >Having two arrays is a condition of the problem statement, >> >and has nothing to do with the language. >> >> This is not correct. >> >> In some languages, e.g. C++, arrays can be passed and returned by >> reference, and can be modified, so (unless there was some additional >> constraint in the assignment, e.g. that the function's input argument >> not be modified) the two arrays could be the same array. > >That is precisely that case. The requirement is for a function, not a >procedure. Therefore, there is a requirement that the original array >not be modified. That conclusion ("Therefore, ...") may be true if you restrict yourself to Ada. But there are other languages for which it is not true, as I demonstrated by the examples in my reply. Thus your statement that "it has nothing to do with the language" is not correct. >> The fact that these two arrays have different contents is not a contraction, >> because the different contents occur at different times, and it's quite >> possible for a single array to have different contents at different times. > >I don't understand this paragraph. Sorry -- I meant to write "contradiction" instead of "contraction". -- Fergus Henderson | "Binaries may die WWW: | but source code lives forever" PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 | -- leaked Microsoft memo.