Re: Integers and Mathematical Correctness

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

...And as constants (probably #define...), they can easily be overriden by
the inclusion of another header file or within the file itself. Nothing
stops you from doing: "#define FLT_MAX 1.0" There's nothing to stop you from
accidentally having that appear in some other header file that is brought
into your code invisibly. The sizeof is at least something the compiler is
likely to make sure is correct - but it isn't as useful as knowing what the
'Mantissa or 'Exponent of a float is.

As I said, it isn't as if other languages don't give you *some* of the
things you get from Ada's Attributes in some alternate form. Its just that
the Ada Attributes are generally more useful and more safe - and probably
more breadth of coverage as well. You get a *lot* of power from the
attributes and when I taught Ada to newbies, I always tried to cover them as
much as I could - they are very useful and introduce newbies to The Ada
Way...

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/


"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3BE7F836.B9B78AB5@worldnet.att.net...
> "peter@nospam" wrote:
>
> I think this was the point Marin was making. C has header files that
> define minimum and maximum values for numeric types, but the use
> of those header files is optional. Furthermore, those minimum and
> maximum values are not part of the type definition. Instead, they
> are simply constants defined in several header files.
>