Re: anonymous access type

[Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com>]

On Mar 5, 4:52 pm, Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne)
<yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> wrote:
> On 5 mar, 19:35, Adam Beneschan <a...@irvine.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I think Ada 79 or some earlier proposal had that.  For named parameter
> > associations, instead of the => syntax we've gotten used to:
>
> >    Proc (Param => Expression);
>
> > the syntax was
>
> >    Proc (Param := Expression);
>
> > for IN parameters;
>
> >    Proc (Param =: Variable);
>
> > for OUT parameters, and
>
> >    Proc (Param :=: Variable);
>
> > for IN OUT parameters.  At least that's what I recall from way back
> > when.  I suppose the language could still allow
>
> >    Proc (Param <=> Variable)
>
> > for IN OUT, but of course <= has another use now so we couldn't use
> > that...
>
> > And I think that in Ada 79, this was only possible for named
> > associations, not positional ones.
>
> > I don't think your idea is a bad one, though, to allow (but not
> > require) IN|OUT|IN OUT keywords in front of actual parameters (named
> > or positional).  The implementation effort for compiler maintainers
> > would be small, I believe.
>
> >                               -- Adam
>
> I think I would prefer the in/out rather than the :/=/:, while this
> latter is clever as well
> Is it possible to transmit it as a proposal ?
> Where can I do it ?

Actually, I sent a proposal to Ada-Comment after I posted, and there's
been some discussion.  I didn't realize that Randy had already brought
up the idea recently in the context of a different issue (AI05-0144),
which arose because OUT and IN OUT parameters for functions are being
seriously discussed; that proposed feature means there's even more
need for a syntax like you mentioned, at least in my opinion (not
everybody agrees).  For future reference, look at
http://www.adaic.com/standards/articles/comment.html

                                -- Adam