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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Subject: Re: CONSTRAINT_ERROR - why?
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Date: 2002-12-18T18:51:30+00:00
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Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@t-online.de> writes:

> I have written a lot of code and there a many such assignments, because
> the (C-)interface expects always the first component of a structure to
> contain the structure length in bytes. So I want reduce the effort to
> change the code. 

You're trying to convert a size in bits (of type universal_integer) to a
size in bytes (of type BYTE).  And you're doing that all over the place.
So it seems to me you should encapsulate that operation.  It's not hard
to write a function to do that.  I also suggested a generic, which is a
bit heavy, but does the job.  Yes, you'll have to change all your code
to refer to the encapsulated operation.

> The main problem is, that GNAT does the compile without error and
> without warning (at least when invoked from AdaGide), and the exception
> is detected only during runtime (Aonix shows a warning during
> compilation). I had to write a lot of code before I could do the first
> run. If I'd got an warning during compilation then the problem had been
> detected in an early phase and the changes were minimal.

Yes, I agree this is a language design flaw.  I'm glad to hear the Aonix
compiler at least gave a warning (since I work for SofCheck, and Aonix
uses SofCheck's AdaMagic front end).

(Modular types are one of my least favorite features of Ada 95.)

- Bob