Re: "out" parameters

["Marius Amado Alves" <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>]

> If I have a record that contains 2 fields, I initialize the 1st field,
> I then pass the record as an 'out' parameter to a subprogram.  The
> subprogram assigns a value to the 2nd field and returns.
>
> If the record has neither elementary nor access type in it, then the
> compiler may have the flexibility to decide how it wants to pass the
> record.
>
> The question is, what value should I expect for the 1st field in the
> record when the subprogram returns?

This is defined by the language, it's not compiler-dependent.

If you mean "in out" (and not just "out"), you get out whatever you passed
in in any component and the subprogram did not touch.

If you really mean (just) "out", well, you cannot expect to get out anything
valid that the subprogram did not touch, can you? After all, you're not
passing anything "in".

(Well, actually you may be kind of passing something, e.g. bounds. But never
field values.)