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From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Q: access to subprogram
Date: 1996/07/02
Message-ID: <dewar.836351744@schonberg>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 163465894
references: <4rb9dp$qe6@news1.delphi.com> <Dtxu2p.97F@world.std.com>
organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-07-02T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


"Note also that 'Unrestricted_Access on objects is even less safe -- it
can produce a totally meaningless pointer from the start.  I would much
prefer if GNAT had separated these two things into two separate
features."

Now Bob, let's not get *too* carried away with worrying about the safety
of this feature! 'Unrestricted_Access on an object is *exactly* equivalent
to taking the 'Address of something and then unchecked_converting it to
a pointer, something that was often done in Ada 83 days, but clearly
Unrestricted_Access is preferable since at least it is typed.

As to making two separate features, hmmmm ... after all 'Access itself
in Ada really is used for two totally difference purposes, so the use
of Unrestricted_Access for two similarly different purposes seemed
quite consistent to me :-)