Re: Style: always declare subrountines?

["chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com>]

Victor Porton wrote:

 > How do you consider this:
 >
 > If one would always declare every subrountine of a package body in the
 > specification (in the public or in the private part) this excludes the
 > possibility that one may mistakedly create an internal subrountine
 > with the same specification as a not yet implemented public procedure
 > and forget to implement this public procedure and so get wrong program
 > behavior.


I don't see the problem, surely you would have to put the public
routines code in the body and therefore be aware of the naming of the
public routines?

 >
 > Stylistic checkers for always declaring in package specification?


I almost never do this.  I only put the interface routines in the spec
and put auxilliary routines in the body only.  This helps separate as
much as possible the implementation and the specification.  As always
there is an exception to this.  Whenever I have a controlled or
limited_controlled type, I like to put the adjust, initialize and
finalize routine declarations in the private section of the spec.  Just
a preference


I'd often like to completely separate the interface and specification
almost entirely, but that's not possible in Ada.  In fact I don't know a
language in which it is possible to do this.  It's probably a concession
to compilers or something where they have to know the implementation
details of a private type to know what they're doing, or to make it
easier for them.  It's not a big deal though!


Danx
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