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From: Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>
Subject: Re: pointers & OOP
Date: 1999/05/01
Message-ID: <m3g15gzbx6.fsf@mheaney.ni.net>#1/1
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References: <m3k8uszln5.fsf@mheaney.ni.net>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 14:57:23 PDT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-05-01T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org> writes:

> John Robinson <john@jr-and-assoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > Any collection class for example will need to use pointers, even if
> > the collection is based around a fixed length array.  
> 
> Yes, a collection whose items have a class-wide type will require
> pointer use.  But you can use a smart pointer, so you don't have to
> worry about any pointer manipulation headaches.  Gives you the same as a
> reference in other OO languages.

I should also have mentioned that when you declare the primitive
operations of the type to take access parameters, this effectively hides
the fact that you manipulating a pointer.  The syntax of method
invokation is the same as for a non-pointer.


> For some ideas on smart pointers, how to control instance creation, etc,
> peruse the articles (mostly Oct/Nov 98 to the present) in the Ada95
> design patterns archive at the ACM.
> 
> <http://www.acm.org/archives/patterns.html>

The ACM patterns archives also has lots of examples of the access
parameter technique.

Matt