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From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Is 'out' different from 'in out' (Was: Uninitialized "out"
 parameters)
Date: 1996/07/22
Message-ID: <dewar.838068321@schonberg>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 169597864
references: <31EEACDA.64880EEB@sage.inel.gov>
 <gauthier-1907961215520001@164.81.60.62> <Duwwqn.AD0@world.std.com>
 <gauthier-2207961213160001@164.81.60.62> <Duy5JB.3o@world.std.com>
organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-07-22T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Bob said, answering another comment

>My intuitive view, and I guess the easier to teach, is that 'out'
>parameters involve
>initialization at the beginning of the subprogram.

I agree that would be the intuitive view, and easier to teach.  It's not
true, though...

On the other hand, it's close enough to being true that if you program
that way, you won't get in trouble.


I disagree, this would lead you to believe that access fields in a record
were initialized to null, and they are definitely not (in both Ada 83
and Ada 95, they are copied from the callers value).