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From: "Mark Lundquist" <mark@rational.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Help with Atomic_Components and whole array assignment
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 13:38:48 -0800
Organization: Rational Software
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Date: 2001-02-02T13:38:48-08:00
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Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:9589fj$k66$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
>[...]
> Any *semantic* rule in the standard is always an "as-if" rule.
> This is fundamental to the nature of semantic specification.
> This means that if two possible translations have the same
> semantic effect, then they are equivalent.

[DING!] (light bulb turning on...)

Robert, when you first (in a reply to my post) stated that IA would be more
binding in this case than a requirement, I did not understand what you could
be talking about.  If something were meaningless, then what would it mean
for an implementation to follow or not follow it?  The "as if" explanation
clears this up.  The key phrase is "semantically meaningless", and that is
precisely defined.  If a language rule's only meaning is at other than the
semantic level, then as a requirement it has all the force of a bogus
requirement, namely nil.  But as IA it can have some teeth.