Mendal@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU.UUCP (04/11/87)
Dear Ada Fans- Concerning the Constraint_Error on the program which has the 0 .. 100 range.... Although I do not have trusty Language Maintenance Committee notes in front of me, I seem to recall on several occasions that Robert Dewar and Robert Eachus have stated that according to the ARM, 11.6, an implementation can "optimize" a portion of a program if its only "effect" is to cause the raising of a predefined exception. (I hope I have not misrepresented Dewar or Eachus here.) Taken in the context in which the original program appeared, the only "effect" of the program would be to raise Constraint_Error. By the rules granted in 11.6, a clever code generator could simply eliminate the assignment altogether. I recall the DEC and Verdix compilers doing such things. Any comments? -- gom -------