Re: simple question - how to emulate void * ?

[dale@cs.rmit.edu.au (Dale Stanbrough)]

Jeff Carter wrote:

"Well, some of the responses showed how to implement this exact
 capability (print anything as an array of characters) and something
 along the lines of what is really desired (print anything as an array of
 bytes), but the real answer should be, "You should not try to emulate
 'void *' in Ada."."


You should also be careful of scaring people away. Many people want to
know if they can do a task in a particular way, i replied that they 
could (I often get asked "can Ada call "system"?" - there is a hell of
a lot of ignorance out there (well, amongst students at least, but I 
would imagine that exactly the same happens elsewhere). Showing people
that yes, Ada can do it in exactly this way _is_ a useful thing to show.

People can then walk away and say 

   "ok, so i can do all of those things that C can. Maybe it's not 
    so bad...".

rather than...

   "i asked them how to do this, and all they did was say i was 
    wrong and to stop doing it that way."

Technically you may be correct, but that's no use if the person goes
away with a feeling in the back of their mind that says C still has it
over Ada in some areas.

Note i did also say that streams were probably a better way of doing it.


Dale