Re: Main procedure inside a package?

["Frank J. Lhota" <flhota@NOSPAM.ll.mit.edu>]

Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:
> Anything can be a main subprogram (the restriction was for 83), however 
> only parameterless library procedures are guaranteed to be portable:
> 
> LRM 10.2(29):
> An implementation may restrict the kinds of subprograms it supports as 
> main subprograms. However, an implementation is required to support all 
> main subprograms that are public parameterless library procedures.
> 
> How to define the main subprogram (including the case where it is not a 
> library procedure) is implementation defined, i.e. RTFM!

Even for Ada 83, a main program was not required to be a parameterless 
library procedure. I recall seeing at least one validated Ada 83 
compiler that also allowed the main program to be a library level 
parameterless function returning an integer. The result of such a 
function sets the return code of the resulting process.

For both Ada 83 and Ada 95, however, the only portable form for a main 
program is a library parameterless library procedure.