Article View: comp.lang.modula2
Article #4303Re: more about ORD and VAL
From: Robert Nagler
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1988 08:11
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1988 08:11
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Why not define ORD(aValueOfIntType) to be CARDINAL(aValueOfIntType)?
That is, a meaning-preserving coercion into type CARDINAL? That way,
you could just get rid of ORD altogether!
Pardon me, but what does the term "meaning-preserving coercion" denote?
As far as I understand type coercions in other languages, I believe the
current semantics are "meaning-preserving", that is, they preserve the
meaning of the memory and that is all. You cannot get rid of ORD, because
it returns the "ordinal" value in terms of a type CARDINAL. The type
conversion CARDINAL merely subverts the type checking mechanism. I know
that I am a bad boy, but sometimes I need to do things like:
bitset := BITSET( CARDINAL( bitset ) DIV 100H );
This is quite a useful operation in certain types of system programming.
Rob
PS. I've been wondering what would happen if all this talk about
designing Modula-2-rev-Q were translated into energy which could
be used to develop a portable public domain language environment.
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!unizh.UUCP!nagler%olsen From: nagler%olsen@unizh.UUCP (Robert Nagler) Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2 Subject: Re: more about ORD and VAL Message-ID: <8806300811.AA00246@klaus.olsen.uucp> Date: 30 Jun 88 08:11:32 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Info-Modula2 Distribution List <INFO-M2%UCF1VM.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu> Organization: The Internet Lines: 20