From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM
	autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,9544fb5ce0a6df8b
X-Google-NewGroupId: yes
X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8
Received: by 10.68.59.229 with SMTP id c5mr19130180pbr.6.1322379514369;
        Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:38:34 -0800 (PST)
Path: 
 lh20ni23105pbb.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.tornevall.net!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: =?utf-8?Q?Yannick_Duch=C3=AAne_=28Hibou57?=
 =?utf-8?Q?=29?=
 <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Overloading attributes
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 08:38:32 +0100
Organization: Ada @ Home
Message-ID: <op.v5lguig4ule2fv@douda-yannick>
References: <8ed87fee-166a-4be9-ae6c-4d0fbeb4788c@s6g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>
 <3f86a446-77f5-44a1-be27-ecb8ce8ba9dd@b32g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 3JPKcIlxw1eaZ+KTMfEJKw.user.speranza.aioe.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org
User-Agent: Opera Mail/11.60 (Linux)
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2
Xref: news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:14674
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable
Date: 2011-11-27T08:38:32+01:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Le Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:24:08 +0100, Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com> a =
 =

=C3=A9crit:
> You can write an function to replace 'Image, it's a rather a good
> question you bring up because it can also be stated:
> "why are 'Read & 'Write required to have an attribute definition
> clause,
>  but 'Image is not (in fact it is forbidden)?"

Personal opinion: something similar to what I replied to Dmitry some day=
s  =

ago, about not blindly applying any schema to anything. A case by case  =

investigation shows 'Read and 'Write are useful to persistent storage an=
d  =

can be used internally by the Ada runtime or standard library. Image is =
 =

not, and is all in user space only. So there is no formal need to be abl=
e  =

to say =E2=80=9Cfor X'Image=E2=80=9D use, because the runtime, nor the s=
tandard library,  =

will never use it, and as only the user will access it, the user can as =
 =

much define an =E2=80=9Cfunction Image (X : =E2=80=A6) return String_Or_=
Whatever_Type;=E2=80=9D.  =

Similarly, the runtime will make use of Storage (via =E2=80=9Cnew T=E2=80=
=9D), so the  =

=E2=80=99Storage attribute can be redefined by the user.

It's all a matter of =E2=80=9Cis this just toy or it this formally requi=
red ?=E2=80=9D. A  =

user re-definable Image attribute is not needed for the language, so it'=
s  =

up to the user to deal with it at user level.

P.S. I feel the sole use of 'Image I know, is for quick debugging output=
  =

of something. Otherwise, if you need to write a text representation of a=
n  =

entity to some file, you should go with a custom procedure or function.

-- =

=E2=80=9CSyntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.=E2=80=9D [1]
=E2=80=9CStructured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.=
=E2=80=9D [1]
[1]: [Epigrams on Programming =E2=80=94 Alan J. =E2=80=94 P. Yale Univer=
sity]