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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Ada 83 - avoiding unchecked conversions.
Date: 1996/11/29
Message-ID: <dewar.849275146@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 201408713
references: <329C63BC.41C6@lmco.com>
organization: New York University
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-11-29T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Mary asks

"we have two 16 bit integers which we need to assemble into a single 32
bit integer (one is high order, the other low order).  We wish to avoid
unchecked conversion if we can.  Is there a standard accepted way of
doing this?
"


I always wonder when people say "I want to do X without using the obvious
method for doing X". Can you explain why you don't want to use unchecked
conversion here. Is there a real technical reason, or simply some kind
of arbitrary rule in action?

Of course you can do this assembly using multiplication (X * 2**16 + y).
which is more appropriate depends on EXACTLY the abstract semantics of
what you are doing (I mean which of unchecked conversion or multiplication)