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From: Bender <Jeffrey.S.Morrison@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Running a background task
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 13:51:58 -0700 (PDT)
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Date: 2008-05-15T13:51:58-07:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Hi, I'm pretty new to Ada, and need to figure out a way to kick off a
background task that runs more or less forever, while normal execution
of the program continues.

Thus far I've figured out how to create a task and start it, but the
procedure calling it requires the task to finish before continuing
on.  I'm sure I just must be using the wrong mechanisms, but I can't
really figure out the answer.

Task definition
---------------------
(spec)
task type Poll_For_Status is
  entry On_String (String : in SideAB)
end Poll_For_Status;

type Task_Access is access Poll_For_Status;
Status_Task : Task_Access;

(body)
  task body Poll_For_Status is
  begin
    accept On_String (String : in SideAB) do
      loop
        delay 3.0
        Send_Status_Req (String);
      end loop;
    end On_String;
  end Poll_For_Status;

Calling procedure
------------------------
procedure Handle_Msg(...) is
  String : SideAB;
  ...
begin
...
  Status_Task := new Poll_For_Status
  Status_Task.On_String (String);
...

If I remove the loop in the task body, it works fine.  Putting it in
seems to halt execution.

Am I missing anything?