Re: confusion with string initialization

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid>]

In article 
<30c5b01f-8620-4aa7-8bd1-8e39e0fa5296@z21g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
 Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com> wrote:

> On Apr 19, 11:20 am, "John B. Matthews" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> > In article <hqhod3$ti...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >  "J-P. Rosen" <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:
> >
> > > Colin Paul Gloster a écrit :
> >
> > > > Why did you consider a book which makes which packages things are
> > > > in unclear by mutiliating programs by means of the USE keyword to
> > > > be excellent?
> >
> > > Because it makes lisibility a lot better by drawing attention of the
> > > reader on what actually the thing does, and getting rid of useless
> > > information that you can find easily by clicking on the identifier
> > > and selecting "go to declaration".
> >
> > > (Ok, Ok, I'm a bit provocative here, but I'm tired of seeing people
> > > jumping on beginners and insisting on a notation that can drive them
> > > away of the language screaming).
> >
> > Preferring not to overuse "use", I recall becoming an instant fan of
> > "use type" when it was introduced in Ada '95. Is there a way to make
> > Ada.Strings.Fixed."*" visible without the use clause?
> 
> With a renaming declaration.
> 
> Before Ada 95 came out, I often included a nested package named
> OPERATORS in packages that I wrote, in order to facilitate making
> operators visible (often just "=").  This package would contain
> renaming declarations for the operators I wanted to make visible.
> Then, instead of having to USE the whole package, I could say "use
> Pkg.OPERATORS" to make just the desired names visible.  That would
> still work (and the package doesn't have to be nested).  You can write
> your own package
> 
> with Ada.Strings.Fixed;
> package Fixed_Operators is
>    function "*" (Left : in Natural;
>                  Right : in Character) return String
>    renames Ada.Strings.Fixed."*";
>    function "*" (Left : in Natural;
>                  Right : in String) return String
>    renames Ada.Strings.Fixed."*";
> end Fixed_Operators;
> 
> and now "use Fixed_Operators;" will give you what you're looking for.
> (Caveat: I have not tested the above code.)  Technically, I guess this
> doesn't answer your question about how to make the operators visible
> "without the use clause" [on a package], but it should be acceptable
> since it only makes visible certain specific things that you *want* to
> make visible, without making anything else visible that you don't want
> visible.

Thanks for responding, Adam. That's exactly what I was looking for. My 
usual cohorts have sensible "use" policies, but one likes to be 
prepared. :-)

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>