RE: Information Systems Annex was RE: Dispatching and generics - language lawyer question

["Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com>]

From: Bob Leif
To: Keith Thompson et al.
I would be happy with a decimal floating-point; but, would gladly settle
for a less elegant work-around. 

Since I have never worked with binary fixed-point types, please forgive
a naive question. Would the same capacity to create types with exponents
at run-time be of any use or is this equivalent to floating-point?

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] On Behalf Of Keith Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 10:38 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Information Systems Annex was RE: Dispatching and generics
- language lawyer question

"Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com> writes:
[...]
> I also believe that a way around the static requirement for Ada
decimals
> should be created. I still would like to use the slide-rule formula to
> calculate the exponent. Would a pragma To_Static be possible?

If you're talking about a fundamental change to the way certain types
are implemented and represented, I don't think a pragma is the way to
do it.  Ada decimal types (as currently defined) are fixed-point
types.

Are you asking for decimal floating-point?

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@cts.com
<http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center           <*>  <http://www.sdsc.edu/~kst>
Schroedinger does Shakespeare: "To be *and* not to be"