Re: (elementary question) Test on type ?

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

O.K. O.K. O.K. - You got me there. But that's sort of a deeper technical
area than what I think the original question was aimed at. (Sounded more
like a newbie with a more basic question than might be answered by tagged
records)

I'd agree that if Ada were more of a "purely OO language" it probably would
have started deriving all of its types from some base type & generic
parameters might have had more adaptable characteristics. Its been
frustrating for me to deal with certain math-oriented packages where I've
essentially had to create more-or-less identical code for integer types,
fixed types, floating types and decimal types. Lots of math can be done
sticking only to the operations common to all of the above and if they were
all derived from some class called "Scalar" (or had a suitable generic
formal) you could get there a lot easier.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:le5l7.3173$4z.4905@www.newsranger.com...
>
> Actually it is doable, if the type in question is a tagged type. In that
case
> you can easily do something like:
>
> if Object_A in Parent_Type_X'class then ....
>
> The reason this won't work for Integer is that Integer isn't tagged. Thus:
>
> 1) You can't use 'Class on it (or a subtype of it).
> 2) You can't pass it into a routine that can also take other types for the
same
> parameter.
>
> I suppose you would be able to do that with Integer if Ada had a type
system
> where every type was derived from some common root type. I think there are
some
> languages out there that work that way. Ada just isn't one of them.
>