Re: User-defined type attributes

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:58:29 -0700 (PDT), Eric Hughes wrote:

> An attribute function must evaluate at compile-time, or perhaps more
> subtly, prior to elaboration time.  Much of the requisite apparatus is
> already present with static expressions and preelaborable packages.
> The standard would require an additional definition of the ability to
> pre-elaborate a function body.  While such a body might be restricted
> to returning a single static expression, that seem a bit restrictive.

Attributes in Ada aren't necessarily static, even type's attributes aren't.
To me static functions is an independent, yet important issue.

In my view attributes should be primitive operations. I would handle them
similarly to prefix notation. I.e. X(Y,Z), Y.X(Z), Y'X(Z) considered
equivalent. When applied to types, that should be treated just as a
parameter of the type Tag.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de