From: Alex Mentis <asmentis@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Ensuring postconditions in the face of exceptions
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:05:20 -0700 (PDT)
Date: 2010-03-14T07:05:20-07:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <8990d686-f703-4e9c-91b7-32410289983d@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 820d96c0-5d67-4b8c-8c5b-811ca4f1127e@g26g2000yqn.googlegroups.com
On Mar 12, 4:13 am, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> Consider the procedure:
>
> type T is private; -- completion elided
>
> generic
> with procedure Visit (Object : in out T);
> procedure Refresh (Object : in out T; Dirty : in out T) is
> begin
> if Dirty then
> Visit (Object);
> Dirty := False;
> end if;
> exception
> when others =>
> Dirty := True; -- warnings here
> raise;
> end Refresh;
>
> GNAT says:
> warning: assignment to pass-by-copy formal may have no effect
> warning: "raise" statement may result in abnormal return (RM
> 6.4.1(17))
>
> The reason for the exception handler is to enforce a postcondition
> that Dirty must be True if Visit raises an exception. However the
> warnings suggest that the postcondition cannot be enforced this way.
> How should I rewrite my code?
>
> --
> Ludovic Brenta.
I think trying to "force" the parameter passing mode to a certain mode
is making this more complicated than necessary. One of the nice
things about Ada over other languages is that you generally shouldn't
have to worry about whether a parameter is copy-by-value or copy-by-
reference.
In this case, you are trying to use the exception handler to assign a
value to the local parameter Dirty so that it can get passed back to
the calling subprogram. This implies the calling subprogram has a
parameter in its scope that keeps track of dirtiness, too. Instead of
trying to set Dirty to True in Refresh, why not just raise a user-
defined exception (such as Dirty_Error) and have an exception handler
in the calling subprogram that catches this exception and sets the
*calling subprogram's* variable tracking dirtiness to True?
Alex
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-03-14 14:05 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 32+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-03-12 9:13 Ensuring postconditions in the face of exceptions Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-12 9:24 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-12 9:29 ` Niklas Holsti
2010-03-12 11:08 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-12 14:00 ` Jeffrey R. Carter
2010-03-13 3:15 ` Randy Brukardt
2010-03-13 15:14 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-16 3:13 ` Randy Brukardt
2010-03-16 15:18 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-16 19:00 ` Adam Beneschan
2010-03-16 20:04 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-16 23:23 ` Randy Brukardt
2010-03-13 17:34 ` Jeffrey R. Carter
2010-03-13 7:54 ` Stephen Leake
[not found] ` <ruqub2y84rqj.179q01lxzgatj$.dlg@40tude.net>
2010-03-13 19:33 ` Georg Bauhaus
2010-03-14 14:05 ` Alex Mentis [this message]
2010-03-14 14:21 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-14 15:12 ` Alex Mentis
2010-03-15 9:14 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-15 11:05 ` cjpsimon
2010-03-15 13:04 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-15 14:16 ` J-P. Rosen
2010-03-15 19:14 ` Jeffrey R. Carter
2010-03-16 19:25 ` Robert Matthews
2010-03-14 15:38 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-15 8:54 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-15 16:44 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-15 17:33 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-15 18:36 ` Robert A Duff
2010-03-14 18:57 ` Jeffrey R. Carter
2010-03-15 8:56 ` Ludovic Brenta
2010-03-15 11:04 ` AdaMagica
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