From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d3b2e17058959a22 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-03-23 22:02:30 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: nntp.gmd.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!udel!news.mathworks.com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!noc.near.net!inmet!henning!stt From: stt@henning.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) Subject: Re: C++ to Ada95, help please Message-ID: Sender: news@inmet.camb.inmet.com Organization: Intermetrics, Inc. X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8] References: Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 18:31:05 GMT Date: 1995-03-23T18:31:05+00:00 List-Id: Mike Meier (mjmeie@ss5.magec.com) wrote: > Tucker Taft (stt@henning.camb.inmet.com) wrote: > : I believe GNAT supports a pragma "Unchecked_Union" (approximately) which > : is applied to a discriminated record to make it look like a C > : union. > : > : It is hoped that this pragma will become a defacto standard for Ada 95 > : compilers that support interfacing to C. > : -Tucker Taft stt@inmet.com > : Intermetrics, Inc. > I hate to pick a bone with Tuck just after approval of Ada 95. But, if > he hopes this will become a defacto standard, why wasn't it just included > in the language definition? There is a fairly big difference between a defacto standard and a dejure standard in terms of lead-time, energy required, etc. If such a pragma had been proposed a few years ago, we could have done the work to write it up precisely in Reference-Manual-ease, and sent it around for review, and revised it, and polished it, and ... Unfortunately, the consensus developed around this pragma only in the past 6 months. In any case, I would expect there to be many de-facto standards in the area of implementation-defined pragmas, attributes, and generally useful packages. The Uniformity Rapporteur Group (URG) of the ISO Working Group on Ada (WG9) was established specifically to encourage uniformity in areas that were left open to implementor and user creativity by the inevitably limited standardization process. I would expect GNAT to be the vanguard for defacto standards, since it will be freely available on so many platforms. Other Ada 95 vendors will probably try to follow GNAT's lead, unless there is a real dispute about the appropriateness of a pragma or attribute. The URG will probably emerge as the forum for resolving such disputes. > Mike Meier > Magnavox Electronic Systems Company -Tucker Taft stt@inmet.com Intermetrics, Inc.