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From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: simple question?! (choice of the name "access type")
Date: 11 Jun 2003 06:31:21 -0500
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In article <d40d7104.0306102259.6a450043@posting.google.com>, vashwath@rediffmail.com (prashna) writes:
> Hi all,
> Why access types in Ada are called as access types?What can these
> types access?why not it is called by some other name?Any pointers on
> this will be appreciated.

The value of an access type can be used to access objects of some
other type (designated when the particular access type was declared).

The other name which access types might have been called is "pointers",
but they lack many of the aspects (drawbacks) of pointers in other
languages:

		You cannot arbitrarily add to access types as one would
			do in C to walk down an array (or walk off the
			end of an array).

		Implementations are not required to implement access
			types as a pointer.