Re: ObjectAda vs Gnat -- bugs

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

iNick said

<<However, one could perhaps define a nifty little function such as:

   function Is_Parameterless_Function (Entity: Ada_Entity'Class) return
Boolean is
   begin
      return (Entity in Ada_Function and then
Parameter_Count(Ada_Subprogram(Entity)) = 0) or
             Entity in Ada_Enumeration_Literal;
   end;

It may still have to be used judiciously!

Nick.>>


Nifty indeed, but unfortunately totally irrelevant to the case that started
the discussion, since of course you can rename functions with parameters
anyway. So this does not unify anything. 

Remember that the fix is absolutely trivial here, it is just a matter of
remembering to do it! The point is though, going back to Bob Duff's
original comment, that making enumeration literals be functions for some
purposes and not others (at the implementation level, and even at the
semantic level, because these are not ordinary functions, they are for
example static), means that you have specialization to do whatever you
try. 

Just for interest, here is the fix that is now in the current version of GNAT:

         elsif Is_Entity_Name (Nam)
           and then Ekind (Entity (Nam)) = E_Enumeration_Literal
         then
            --  weird but legal, equivalent to renaming a function call.
            null;


not a big deal certainly -- interesting that no one ever ran into this
in several years of use :-)