Re: anonymous access type

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> writes:

> Although it is not syntactically specified this way in the RM, you
> should see "access" as a kind of mode in itself. Therefore, it replaces
> the "in".
>
> The idea (at least in Ada95) was that you did not pass a pointer, you
> passed an object (of the designated type) by reference. Thus, "access"
> was really the mode. It is a bit less true in 2005, since null values
> are now allowed.

FWIW, when Tucker invented access parameters, his first thought was that
this should be a new "mode" -- so a mode could be 'in', 'in out', 'out',
or 'access'.

It didn't turn out that way, but it's not so wrong to think of 'access'
as a parameter passing mode.

- Bob