Re: Numerical calculations: Why not use fixed point types for everything?

[Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>]

On 13-02-04 18:44 , Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> On 02/04/2013 07:24 AM, Niklas Holsti wrote:
>> On 13-02-04 12:09 , Ada novice wrote:
>>>
>>> When assigning constants, I always use
>>>
>>>     Number : constant := 100.0
>>>
>>> and then lets the compiler decides how it wants to treat the constant
>>> when say multiplying with a type such as integer,
>>
>> (You can't multiply 100.0 with an integer, unless you do a type
>> conversion or define your own multiplication operator.)
> 
> Sure you can.
> 
>    Twice : constant := 2 * Number;
>    Half  : constant := Number / 2;
> 
> are both legal (ARM 4.5.5).

You are right, and I stand corrected: you can compute with mixtures of
integral named numbers and real named numbers to provide values for new
real named numbers, if I've understood that ARM point correctly.

But I also forgot about another thing: you can compute I * Number, where
I is an Integer variable, since Number can be considered to be
universal_fixed, and fixed-point types can be multiplied by Integer.

So what YC said about multiplication of integers and named real numbers
is correct.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
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