Re: Functions vs constants

[Adam Beneschan <adambeneschan@gmail.com>]

On Thursday, July 24, 2014 9:01:43 AM UTC-7, Robert A Duff wrote:

>    procedure P is 
>       X: constant Integer := 1;
> 
>       procedure Q is
>          X: constant Boolean := True;
>       begin
>          Overloaded(X);
>          ...

> Now, you might say the above SHOULD be illegal, and I'd agree.
> But it's currently legal, and we shouldn't be breaking legal
> programs.

If the "X: Integer" constant is used only in the body of P, it can be moved down below Q, just above P's "begin".  But it should be noted that this was not possible in Ada 83, where there was less freedom about how things in a declarative part were ordered.  So it wouldn't surprise me if there is legacy Ada 83 code that does something like your example, i.e. declaring the same constant name in a scope and a nested scope, such that both would become visible if constant declarations were made overloadable.

                            -- Adam