Re: Out parameters in a function

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002 17:21:37 GMT, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG"
<ve3wwg@home.com> wrote:

>Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:00:42 +0000 (UTC), "Kent Paul Dolan"
>> <xanthian@well.com> wrote:
>
>...
>
>> Same in Ada:
>> 
>> declare
>>    aSomestructTypedVariable : constant SomestructType :=
>>       aSomestructReturningFunction (...);
>> begin
>>    if aSomestructTypedVariable.booleanPart then
>>       usefulVal := aSomestructTypedVariable.usefulPart;
>>    end if;
>> end;
>
>You could take this one step further (or perhaps this is implied)
>and make the returned "SomestructType" a discriminated type. That
>way if the value .booleanPart is false, the other member(s) of the
>record/structure is invalid to access, maintaining safety.

Yes, indeed. Safety is a good point. Ada offers many nice
possibilities with that respect. Another is to return a class wide
object with later dispatch on something like Use_That_Stuff.

Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de