Re: Q: on redefinition of "=

[bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)]

In article <4jrlluINN15b@thalamus.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
david scott gibson <dgibson@thalamus.cis.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>As I mentioned in my post, I'm painfully aware of the negative
>implications of this strategy.  Unfortunately there is a mismatch
>between Ada and the language I'm trying to map to Ada.  When I import
>some type as a generic parameter, I need to know that the instance
>gets a valid representation of that type.  With Ada's scalars, this is
>impossible.

You seem to imply that you want initialization, but not necessarily
finalization.

It seems to me that it wouldn't be hard for an implementation to
special-case those controlled types that have initialization, but not
finalization.  Most of the cost comes from the finalization support.
Of course, that doesn't imply that this optimization is worthwhile --
I'm not sure how many controlled types, outside your application, would
benefit.

Also, a plain old (non-controlled) record type can have automatic
initialization for its components.

- Bob