4.7 Qualified Expressions
1
[A
qualified_expression
is used to state explicitly the type, and to verify the subtype, of an
operand that is either an
expression or an
aggregate.
{type
conversion: See also qualified_expression} ]
Syntax
2
qualified_expression ::=
subtype_mark'(
expression) |
subtype_mark'
aggregate
Name Resolution Rules
3
{operand (of a qualified_expression)
[partial]} The
operand (the
expression
or
aggregate) shall resolve to be of the type
determined by the
subtype_mark, or a universal
type that covers it.
Dynamic Semantics
4
{evaluation (qualified_expression)
[partial]} {Range_Check
[partial]} {check,
language-defined (Range_Check)} {Discriminant_Check
[partial]} {check,
language-defined (Discriminant_Check)} {Index_Check
[partial]} {check,
language-defined (Index_Check)} The evaluation
of a
qualified_expression evaluates the operand
(and if of a universal type, converts it to the type determined by the
subtype_mark) and checks that its value belongs
to the subtype denoted by the
subtype_mark.
{implicit subtype conversion (qualified_expression)
[partial]} {Constraint_Error
(raised by failure of run-time check)} The
exception Constraint_Error is raised if this check fails.
4.a
Ramification: This is one of the few
contexts in Ada 95 where implicit subtype conversion is not performed
prior to a constraint check, and hence no “sliding” of array
bounds is provided.
4.b
Reason: Implicit subtype conversion is
not provided because a qualified_expression
with a constrained target subtype is essentially an assertion about the
subtype of the operand, rather than a request for conversion. An explicit
type_conversion can be used rather than a
qualified_expression if subtype conversion
is desired.
5
23 When a given context does not uniquely
identify an expected type, a qualified_expression
can be used to do so. In particular, if an overloaded name
or aggregate is passed to an overloaded subprogram,
it might be necessary to qualify the operand to resolve its type.
Examples
6
Examples of disambiguating
expressions using qualification:
7
type Mask is (Fix, Dec, Exp, Signif);
type Code is (Fix, Cla, Dec, Tnz, Sub);
8
Print (Mask'(Dec)); -- Dec is of type Mask
Print (Code'(Dec)); -- Dec is of type Code
9
for J in Code'(Fix) .. Code'(Dec) loop ... -- qualification needed for either Fix or Dec
for J in Code range Fix .. Dec loop ... -- qualification unnecessary
for J in Code'(Fix) .. Dec loop ... -- qualification unnecessary for Dec
10
Dozen'(1 | 3 | 5 | 7 => 2,
others => 0)
-- see 4.6
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