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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,da85d9aaf769b16a X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!news.cse.ohio-state.edu!usenet01.sei.cmu.edu!elk.ncren.net!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!nntp.TheWorld.com!not-for-mail From: Robert A Duff Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Generic package parameters not externally visible : what's the rational ? Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:56:49 -0400 Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: shell01.theworld.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: pcls6.std.com 1256569009 19249 192.74.137.71 (26 Oct 2009 14:56:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@TheWorld.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:56:49 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.1008 (Gnus v5.10.8) Emacs/21.3 (irix) Cancel-Lock: sha1:h/E9wWy4MWtr7xChAHS627maA6o= Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8785 Date: 2009-10-26T10:56:49-04:00 List-Id: "Hibou57 (Yannick Duch�ne)" writes: > Still the time for my two cents of the day : parameters of generic > packages are not externally visible. I use to read in a few places on > the web, this is so to preserve type privacy, but without any examples > which could illustrate this view. > > What's the rational behind this ? I don't think there is any rationale. It makes perfect sense for them to be visible, but they're not. I guess it was just a minor mistake in Ada 83, and it's never been thought important enough to fix in later versions. I don't see any way in which this rule "preserves type privacy". Note that the rule is different for generic formal packages. Your workaround is OK. I've done that. But it presents an annoying problem -- you have to think of two different names for the same thing. - Bob