Re: List container: Insert and Delete

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

O.K., but just to be tricky - suppose you pre-allocate a node that is to be
used for the next insertion. When an insertion is done, you use that node
and attempt to allocate another one. If it fails, the list is full.

That probably wouldn't work for all cases such as discriminated or tagged
records, where you can't allocate until you know what you want to store, but
it is a trick that might be useful in some contexts.

Basically, I agree - an unbounded list wouldn't likely have or need an
Is_Full function. If you wanted one for consistency, it could always return
False. But I see no need that a Bounded package and an Unbounded package
have to be plug compatible. You very seldom would want to unplug the one and
plug in the other - you take the decision at the time of design and use the
package that makes most sense then. Swapping implementations after that
would mean some serious regression testing of the software, so you could
probably modify it for any incompatibilities along the way and not be that
bad off.

I think it was Mark Twain who said something about "A foolish consistency is
the product of little minds." :-)

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/


"Jeffrey Carter" <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message
news:3BF0827A.DCF2213C@acm.org...
>
> The difference, of course, is that you can provide an Is_Full function
> for a bounded list, but not for an unbounded list. In both cases an
> exception should be raised if an attempt is made to add an element when
> that is not possible.
>