Re: Type qualification & entry calls - can they mix?

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

In article <503j4h$apb@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
Dale Stanbrough  <dale@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>that should of course have said...
>
>	fred'(prots(1)).a;

It is illegal by the syntax rules, because a qualified_expression is an
expression but not a name, and the prefix before the dot has to be a
name (or an impliit_dereference, which is also a name -- aren't
ambiguous grammars fun?).

There are cases where I have wanted to use a qualification as a name, so
this restriction is mildly annoying.

Ada 95 changed some things from expressions to names.  Type_conversions,
for example.  IMHO, we should have gone all the way, and totally
eliminated the distinction between names and other expressions.  The
distinction is unhelpful, and in a few cases, gets in the way.
Certainly a qualified_expression should be allowed in exactly the same
places as a type_conversion.

- Bob