Re: ANN: Adare_net Ada network lib

[Joakim Strandberg <joakimds@kth.se>]

> I had a quick look at the top level source code. I'm surprised all 
> packages are declared with "pure" aspect. 
> From what I understand of the "pure" aspect, these packages are not pure. 
> Am I wrong ? 
> 
> Regards, 
> Nicolas

I agree with you Nicolas, they should not be declared Pure. It makes the GNAT compiler check for example that there are no global variables used in the packages but other than that, they (I didn't check all the packages) are not Pure. The pragma Pure worked as expected in Ada83 but the meaning and utility of it disappeared with the Ada95 standard. It is possible in Ada95 to declare a package as Pure and then import C-functions that can do anything. It is also possible in Ada95 to circumvent the meaning of pragma Pure or the Pure aspect by taking advantage of dynamic dispatch. If there is any use of a tagged type inside a package or there is some C-function that is imported, the package should not be labeled as Pure. It should be possible to develop a libadalang- or ASIS based application to check for this. Well, this is a small issue since it is easy to remove the Pure aspects. In any case, thanks to the author for writing adare_net and sharing it with the World!

Best regards,
Joakim