Re: Another Newbie question about interfacing to C

[gressett@iglobal.net]

David Gressett <gressett@iglobal.net> wrote:

>I need to communucate with a C routine that takes an array of char *
>as an argument, i.e., it is prototyped as
>
>void someroutine(char *things[]);
>
>The problem is that the component elements of  things are not
>necessarily pointers to char;  they could be pointers to something
>else that have been cast to pointers to char. someroutine has access
>to information that tells it exactly which type is pointed to by the
>elements of things[].
>
>The original programmer of this routine used this technique to pass
>arguments of arbitrary type to the routine someroutine. The types are
>known at compile time, and their order in things[] is significant.The
>number of elements in things[] is unlimited.
>
>Is there a reasonable Ada way to pass arguments of arbitrary type to
>an Ada routine? It need not look very C-ish. 


Hmmm. Further study of the Cohen book causes me to believe that a
discriminant record type is what I need. It's interesting how C habits
can lead you into not seeing Ada stuff that is right under your nose.