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From: Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Comments requested for a couple of Ada-Comments submissions
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 19:30:01 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2014-07-11T19:30:01+00:00
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On 2014-07-11, Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> wrote:
> On 14-07-11 18:35 , Adam Beneschan wrote:
>> 
>>     A := (C => D, E => F, others => A.others);
>
> To me, this looks too much like a normal aggregate. Only at the end,
> from the new form "A.others", do we see that it is a partial aggregate.
>

There's another potential problem with the "A.others" syntax.

Unless the rules were defined carefully, or unless Randy and company
decide that record components are covered by Atomic, it could result
in a partial read of A instead of a full read, and we could be back
to the ldr/ldrb saga once again. :-)

> Also, the duplication of the word "others" is a bit ugly, and "A.others"
> does not really mean anything by itself; its meaning depends on the
> components listed before the "others" part. How about:
>
>    (C => D, E => F, then others => A)
>
> or
>
>    (C => D, E => F, and others => A)
>

"And" is far better than "then" here but I think something that says
up front (before the components) that this is a partial aggregate
would be even more readable.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world