Re: The equals function.

[BBardin@ADA20.ISI.EDU]

In response to your question "Where are the predefined operations for
array, access and record types defined if not in package 'Standard':

I think the answer follows from the realization that the predefined
types 'Integer', 'Characer' and 'Boolean' are quite different things
than array, record and access types.  The later are classes (or types)
of types, while the former are instances of Ada type classes.
i.e., The predefined type 'Integer' is just one instance of all possible
integer types, while 'Boolean' and 'Character' are predefined 
enumeration types (enumeration being the class).   

ARM 3.3.3(2) states that the predefined operations for a type (not a
type class) occur after the type declaration (an instance of the
class).  The predefined operations for 'Integer', 'Character' and
'Boolean' are found in 'Standard' because that is where the type
declarations for these types are found.  There are no predefined
operations for 'array', 'record', and 'access' qua type classes, only
for actual array, record and access types.

Note that 'String' is a predefined array type, (just as 'Integer' is a
predefined integer type) and the predefined operations for 'String'
are found immediately following the declaration in package 'Standard'.
Note also that the term 'integer' has been overloaded to refer to both
a class of types (as in "... 'Short_Integer' is an integer type ...")
and a specific instance of a type (as in "... the predefined type
'Integer' ...").

I hope this has been of some help,

John Prentice,
GMHEC
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