Re: Eiffel and Java

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <55crp0$qn9@dscomsa.desy.de> mernst@x4u2.desy.de (Matthias Ernst) writes:

  > All languages that unify inheritance and subtyping enforce that
  > once you inherit from a class you build a subtype. There are
  > several examples (mostly with binary methods and the type Self,
  > SAME, like Current or whatever) that show that it may be the
  > implementation you are interested in but you can't guarantee
  > subtype relationship.

  > class Comparable
  > is
  >   "<="(other: Self): Bool is abstract;
  >   ">="(other: Self): Bool is other <= self end;
  >   ">"(other: Self): Bool is ~(self <= other) end;
  >   "<"(other: Self): Bool is other > self end;
  > end;...

    I think I understand what you want here, but it works fine in Ada 95:

  package Compare is
    type Comparable is tagged private;
    function "<=" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean is abstract;
    function ">=" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
    function ">" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
    function "<" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
  private
    type Comparable is null record;
  end Compare;

  package body Compare is

    function ">=" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean is 
    begin return R <= L; end ">=";

    function ">" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean is
    begin return not (L <= R); end ">";

    function "<" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
    begin return not (R <= L); end "<";

  end Compare;

    For types derived from Comparable, you only need to define the one
inequality operation.  The other possibility is that you want a
generic template.  That works in Ada 95 as well:

  generic
    type Comparable is tagged private;
    with function "<=" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean is <>;
  package Compare is
    function ">=" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
    function ">" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
    function "<" (L,R: Comparable) return Boolean;
  end Compare;

  package body Compare is -- (same as above)

    I went through all this because it is one of the cases where the
symmetric Ada notation does have technical advantages.

--

					Robert I. Eachus

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