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From: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Should representation clauses be complete for each bit?
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:22:13 +0100
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Date: 2011-07-21T09:22:13+01:00
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Martin <martin@thedowies.com> writes:

> On Jul 20, 6:28 pm, Robert A Duff <bobd...@shell01.TheWorld.com>
> wrote:
>> Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de> writes:
>> > On 20.07.11 16:51, Robert A Duff wrote:
>>
>> >> By the way, I find Ada's representation clauses to be at the wrong
>> >> level of abstraction.  Why can't I just write a single line of code
>> >> that means "put all the components in declaration order with no gaps
>> >> in between"?
>>
>> > Is this a frequent use case?
>>
>> Yes, I think so.
>>
>> - Bob
>
> I think you're right, Bob. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's very,
> very common.
> -- Martin

Presumably if something took only three bits you'd have to say that much
at least.

And would it be 'Size or 'Object_Size? (remembering that Natural'Size
{used to be,is} Integer'Size - 1).

Wouldn't pragma Pack do this?

It may be that *if you need to specify a representation* this is a
common use case (I don't remember it being so), but needing to specify a
representation is pretty rare anyway. And so it should be, after all it
should only happen at the edges, well hidden from the bulk of the
application.