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From: Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Surprise in array concatenation
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 10:48:19 +0200
Organization: Adalog
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Date: 2005-09-01T10:48:19+02:00
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Gene a �crit :
> Seldom am I surprised by Ada semantics, but today they got me.
> 
> type Int_List_Type is array(Integer range <>) of Integer;
> 
> procedure Main is
> 
>   function F(a : Int_List_Type) return Integer is
>     i : Integer;
>   begin
>     if a'Length <= 1 then
>       return a(1);
>     else
>       -- calculate i s.t. 1 <= i <= a'Last
>       -- with some algorithm; details irrelevant
>       ...
>       return F(a(1..i - 1) & a(i + 1, a'Last));
>     end if;
>   end Calculate;
> 
>   a : Int_List(1..100);
> 
> begin
>   -- yada yada; fill a with values
>   Put(Calculate(F(a)));
> end;
> 
> The gotcha is that when (and only when) i is determined to be zero, the
> concatenation in the recursive call to F produces a starting index of 2
> rather than 1.  Of course this causes the base case test to raise an
> exception in the next recursive call.  This is in accordance with the
> ALRM and GNAT implements it perfectly.
> 
> Yes I know how to recode this to use a'First instead of 1 as needed.
> 
> Nonetheless the rule seems silly:  When a leading zero-length array is
> catenated to another array the result takes on the starting index of
> the _second_ operand.  This doesn't make sense to me.  Why not use the
> starting index of the zero-length array?
> 
Because the lower bound of a null array needs not belong to the subtype 
used for indexing.

Note that you can force the lower bound by subtype conversion:
declare
    Result : constant string := F(a(1..i - 1) & a(i + 1, a'Last));
    subtype Force_Lower_To_1 is string (1 .. Result'length);
begin
    return Force_Lower_To_1 (Result);
end;

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr