Re: limited allocated classwide types

[Brian Drummond <brian@shapes.demon.co.uk>]

On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:35:14 -0700, Simon Belmont wrote:

> Though it is satisfying to hear that this is most likely a compiler
> error, and not poor programming skills on my part, I can't help but feel
> unnerved by this.  I am only months into being an Ada programmer and not
> trying to anything that isn't well described and ostensibly supported,
> so it seems odd that such a basic test case would uncover and compiler
> bug.  Moreover, one of the points of pride is that Ada compilers are
> heavily tested and verified for safety critical apps, which this seems
> to undercut.  Not to sound snarky, but I personally have never found a
> bug in a GPL C compiler.

Simon W has pointed you at Adacore for reporting the bug, and it's great 
that you have such a simple testcase.

I reported a much more trivial bug some time ago, expecting nothing 
(since it was the GPL version of the compiler). About four months later, 
out of the blue,  I received a note of thanks and an acknowledgment that 
the bug had been fixed. Well done Adacore...

My experience suggests that there are some untried corner cases simply 
because there are fewer people using and exercising the compiler. So I 
wouldn't want you to be discouraged ... that would mean one fewer pair of 
eyes!

But this bug (assuming it is confirmed, as it looks to be) is much closer 
to the core of the language ... to me it raises the question: has ACATS 
(test suite) not kept up with the language additions in Ada-2005? And is 
it being maintained and updated alongside Ada-2012?

Is there a mechanism for adding ad-hoc test cases like this one to ACATS? 
One would like to think there is a more systematic effort to add tests 
alongside features as they are developed.

- Brian