Re: Equality operator overloading in ADA 83

[kst@sd.aonix.com (Keith Thompson)]

In <33602040.3178674@news.airmail.net> clines@delete_this.airmail.net (Kevin Cline) writes:
> "Manuel Wenger" <manuel@thunder.ch*> wrote:
[...]
> >In other words, how do I tell my "equal" function to be an equality
> >operator, authorized to be renamed into "="? HELP! :)
> 
> You can't.  Period.  Why?  I don't know.  Drove me crazy once.
> Maybe some Ada-83 committee member will volunteer why it was 
> considered reasonable to redefine '<' and '>' but not '=' .

Actually, you can.  Though the designers of Ada 83 intended to prohibit
overloading of "=" for non-limited types, it can be done by tricky use
of generics.  I don't remember the exact details, but the idea is that
it's legal to overload "=" for a limited private generic formal type
and it's legal to pass a non-limited type as the actual for a limited
private formal.  Perhaps someone else can provide details and credit
the originator.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@sd.aonix.com <http://www.aonix.com> <*>
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