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From: "Beard, Frank Randolph CIV" <frank.beard@navy.mil>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: RE: What evil would happen?
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 19:04:29 -0400
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Date: 2003-07-11T19:04:29-04:00

-----Original Message-----
From: Hyman Rosen

>Wojtek Narczynski wrote:
>> What would happen if a procedure could return a value like a =
function,
>> or a function could accept an out parameter?

> I don't know Ada well enough to answer this myself,
> so I'll ask here - can you make a generic function
> with generic parameters which correspond to the out
> parameters that you would like to pass into the
> function, and have the function write to those? If
> so, is that an acceptable workaround?

Well, if you really wanted the C/C++ function characteristics
for whatever reason, you could use aliased types and pass them
as access parameters to the function.

      type X_Type is ...

      function Do_Something (to_X : access X_Type) return integer;

      function Do_Something (to_X : access X_Type) return integer is
      begin
         ...
         to_X.all :=3D ...;  -- update to_X
         ...
         return 0;
      exception
        when others =3D> return -1;
      end Do_Somthing;

      x           : aliased X_Type;
      return_Code : integer :=3D 0;

   begin

      ...
      return_Code :=3D Do_Something(to_X =3D> x'access);
      ...


Sorry I didn't have time to come up with something more concrete,
but hopefully you get my meaning.

Hope it helps.
Frank