Re: Function Pointers

[jerry@jvdsys.nextjk.stuyts.nl (Jerry van Dijk)]

Barry L. Dorough (bdorough@phaseiv.com) wrote:

: Is there any way to implement function pointers in Ada?

Yes, basically the same way as in C. However, being a stronger
typed language, Ada asks you to explicitly create a pointer type
for the functions you want to access through a pointer, so that the
compiler can check argument and return types.

: Below is a
: sample C program using function pointers.  How can I do this in Ada?

Actually, your program is C++, not C. Anyway:

-- As GNAT allows only one compilation unit in a file
--  we nest the functions within main;
-- Long_Float would be GNAT's equivalent to gcc's double;
-- We pretend that Main is a 'void' function. 

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;

procedure Main is

   type Func_Ptr is access function (X, Y : Integer) return Integer;
   -- Declare a pointer type, pointing to a function that takes
   -- two Integer variables as input and returns a Integer

   function Add (X, Y : Integer) return Integer is
   begin
      return X + Y;
   end Add;

   function Subtract (X, Y : Integer) return Integer is
   begin
      return X - Y;
   end Subtract;

   function Combine (P, Q : Integer; Func : Func_Ptr) return Integer is
      A : Integer := 10 + P;
   begin
      return Func (A, Q);
   end Combine;

   W : Integer := 20;
   X : Integer := 5;
   Y : Integer := Combine (W, X, Add'Access);
   Z : Integer := Combine (W, X, Subtract'Access);

begin
   Put_Line (W'Img & " " & X'Img & " " & Y'Img & " " & Z'Img);
end Main;
-- 
-- Jerry van Dijk  | email: jdijk@acm.org
-- Leiden, Holland | member Team-Ada