Re: generic function and overloading

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

eliben <eliben@gmail.com> writes:

> I have a few "hardware" types, for example uint16 and uint32. 

You should use Interfaces.Unsigned_16 and Unsigned_32 for these.

> And I want to write a functions that will set or clear bits of such
> types. For example:
>
> function Bit_Set(word: uint16; bitn: natural) return uint16;
>
> function Bit_Set(word: uint16; bitn: natural) return uint16 is
>   mask: uint16 := 2**bitn;
> begin
>   return word or mask;
> end Bit_Set;

Ok.

> However, I realize that such a function would be almost completely
> duplicated for the uint32 type. In C++ I would probably define it as a
> template on the type of the word, and the compiler would do the job
> for me. In Ada, however, when using generics it doesn't seem I can
> leave the same function name for all types (as I would do in
> overloading). I can define a generic Bit_Set, but then I have to
> specialize it for uin16 and uint32 with different function names. Is
> there any way I could combine the effects of generics and overloading
> and get a single Bit_Set for all my types without writing the code N
> times ?

That should work as you describe. Can you show the code that
doesn't work? Then we can help you fix it.

> P.S. Ada95

This should work in Ada 83 :). Any reason you are not in Ada 2005 yet?

-- 
-- Stephe