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From: "Grein, Christoph" <christoph.grein@eurocopter.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: "&" for array versus "&" for Strings
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 07:28:40 +0200 (MET DST)
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Date: 2002-10-09T07:28:40+02:00

procedure Array_Test is

  type Name_Array is array (Positive range <>) of String (1..6);

  procedure Print_Names (Names : Name_Array) is separate;

begin

  Print_Names ("Ada   " & "Babbel");
  Print_Names (string'("Ada   ") & string'("Babbel"));

end Array_Test;

> It seems to me that the "&" should resolve to the
> (string, string)-->Name_Array one, even without the "String'(...)"
> qualifications.  Apparently, the older compiler resolved it to the wrong
> one, and the newer one can't resolve it (which is an improvement, but
> still a bug).
> 
> I'm not surprised that such a bug has never been noticed before.  Most
> people don't write code that uses "&" to concatenate two Strings to
> produce something other than String!  First, it's confusing (to humans,
> I mean, in addition to compilers).  Second, it requires fixed-length
> strings, which is almost never what you want in an array.

I think only the first statement is ambiguous since the compiler is not allowed 
to lookk inside the aggregate to see what is is, a string or an array of 
strings.

With the second statment, it's clear the aggregates are strings, so it can 
resolve the "&" operator to the correct one returning Name_Array. The one 
returning String is out because Print_Names does not accept String.