I was reading about strong typing in Ada focused on units checking, and decided to test the naive approach out myself:
procedure Example is
type Meters is new Float;
type Meters_Squared is new Float;
function "*" (Left, Right : Meters) return Meters_Squared is
begin
return Meters_Squared(Float(Left)*Float(Right));
end;
len_a : Meters := 10.0;
len_b : Meters := 15.0;
surface : Meters_Squared;
len_sum : Meters;
begin
len_sum := len_a + len_b; -- ok
surface := len_a * len_b; -- ok
len_sum := len_a * len_b; -- invalid
end Example;
Now I know that this is not actually practical approach, I'm trying this just as a learning experience. And based on my attempts so far, I must be missing something, because when I try to compile the example listed above, I get no errors:
$ make example
gcc -c example.adb
gnatmake example.adb
gnatbind -x example.ali
gnatlink example.ali
While when I drop the function definition overloading the multiplication operator, it fails as expected:
$ make example
gcc -c example.adb
example.adb:14:20: expected type "Meters_Squared" defined at line 3
example.adb:14:20: found type "Meters" defined at line 2
make: *** [Makefile:6: example] Error 1
With this in mind, I don't understand how, with the multiplication operator overloading, the compiler could be ok with surface := len_a * len_b and len_sum := len_a * len_b at the same time.
Your "*" overloading is just that; Meters inherits
function "*" (Left, Right: Meters) return Meters;
from Float.
What you can do is suppress that inherited function:
function "*" (Left, Right: Meters) return Meters
is abstract;
In this case, marking the undesired function abstract removes it from consideration for overload resolution: in ARM 6.4(8) we have
... The name or prefix shall not resolve to denote an abstract subprogram unless it is also a dispatching subprogram.
and Meters isn’t a tagged type, so "*" isn’t dispatching.
You can also declare a non-overloaded subprogram abstract:
function "and" (Left, Right : Meters) return Meters
is abstract;
to which GNAT says cannot call abstract subprogram "and", because of ARM 3.9.3(7).
Related
In this page, John Barnes writes:
If the conditional expression is the argument of a type conversion then effectively the conversion is considered pushed down to the dependent expressions. Thus
X := Float(if P then A else B);
is equivalent to
X := (if P then Float(A) else Float(B));
So why can't I compile the following program under GNAT 10.3.0?
procedure Main is
P : Boolean := True;
X : Float;
begin
X := Float (if P then 0.5 else 32);
end Main;
Compile
[Ada] main.adb
main.adb:5:35: expected a real type
main.adb:5:35: found type universal integer
gprbuild: *** compilation phase failed
Because you’ve found a long-standing error in the compiler! (same behaviour in GCC 12.1.0).
John Barnes’ justification is at AARM 4.5.7(10ff).
thanks for providing real code and the error messages!
I'm attempting to pass a structure from (x86) assembler to Ada on the stack. I've been able to successfully use this pattern in C to accept to wrap a large number of arguments passed from assembly inside a struct and I'm wondering if this will work in a similar way in Ada.
Here is a (contrived, minimal) example:
When I do this, debugging the callee shows that the passed record contains uninitialised data. It appears that Ada is interpreting the C calling convention differently despite the export directive.
The RM contains information about passing structs from Ada to C, saying that it will automatically pass a record as a pointer type, but the inverse does not appear to be true. If you accept a single access type it will simply be filled with the first value on the stack, as one would expect from cdecl.
( Please excuse any minor errors, this isn't my actual code. )
#####################################################################
# Caller
#
# This pushes the values onto the stack and calls the Ada function
#####################################################################
.global __example_function
.type __example_function, #function
__example_function:
push $1
push $2
push $3
push $4
call accepts_struct
ret
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Accepts_Struct
--
-- Purpose:
-- Attempts to accept arguments pass on the stack as a struct.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
procedure Accepts_Struct (
Struct : Struct_Passed_On_Stack
)
with Export,
Convention => C,
External_Name => "accepts_struct";
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Ideally the four variables passed on the stack would be accepted as
-- the values of this struct.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
type Struct_Passed_On_Stack is
record
A : Unsigned_32;
B : Unsigned_32;
C : Unsigned_32;
D : Unsigned_32;
end record
with Convention => C;
On the other hand, this works just fine:
procedure Accepts_Struct (
A : Unsigned_32;
B : Unsigned_32;
C : Unsigned_32;
D : Unsigned_32
)
with Export,
Convention => C,
External_Name => "accepts_struct";
That's not a big deal in this minimal case, but if I'm passing 16 or more variables it gets a bit onerous. If you're wondering why I'm doing this, it's an exception handler where the processor automatically passes variables onto the stack to show register states.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
The record version does not work because a record is not stored on the stack. Instead 4 Unsigned_32 elements are stored on the stack. If you really want to work with a record instead of four separate unsigned integer values you can assign the four values to the members of your record within the call to "accepts_struct".
Ada expects the first entry in the stack to be a record, not an unsigned_32.
The Ada LRM, section 6.4.1 states:
For the evaluation of a parameter_association: The actual parameter is
first evaluated. For an access parameter, the access_definition is
elaborated, which creates the anonymous access type. For a parameter
(of any mode) that is passed by reference (see 6.2), a view conversion
of the actual parameter to the nominal subtype of the formal parameter
is evaluated, and the formal parameter denotes that conversion. For an
in or in out parameter that is passed by copy (see 6.2), the formal
parameter object is created, and the value of the actual parameter is
converted to the nominal subtype of the formal parameter and assigned
to the formal.
Furthermore, the passing mode for parameters is described in section 6.2:
6.2 Formal Parameter Modes
A parameter_specification declares a formal parameter of mode in, in
out, or out. Static Semantics
A parameter is passed either by copy or by reference. When a parameter
is passed by copy, the formal parameter denotes a separate object from
the actual parameter, and any information transfer between the two
occurs only before and after executing the subprogram. When a
parameter is passed by reference, the formal parameter denotes (a view
of) the object denoted by the actual parameter; reads and updates of
the formal parameter directly reference the actual parameter object.
A type is a by-copy type if it is an elementary type, or if it is a
descendant of a private type whose full type is a by-copy type. A
parameter of a by-copy type is passed by copy, unless the formal
parameter is explicitly aliased.
A type is a by-reference type if it is a descendant of one of the
following:
a tagged type;
a task or protected type;
an explicitly limited record type;
a composite type with a subcomponent of a by-reference type;
a private type whose full type is a by-reference type.
A parameter of a by-reference type is passed by reference, as is an
explicitly aliased parameter of any type. Each value of a by-reference
type has an associated object. For a parenthesized expression,
qualified_expression, or type_conversion, this object is the one
associated with the operand. For a conditional_expression, this object
is the one associated with the evaluated dependent_expression.
For other parameters, it is unspecified whether the parameter is
passed by copy or by reference.
It appears that your compiler is trying to pass the struct by reference rather than by copy. In C all parameters are passed by copy.
Maybe you already solved the problem, but if not, then you might also want to have at look at the interrupt function attribute provided by GCC (see here). I've translated a test of the GCC testsuite which pushes values to the stack (as described in section 6.12 of the Intel SDM) and reads them back in an ISR. The translated Ada version seems to work well. See here for the original C version. See the GCC ChangeLog for some additional info.
main.adb
with PR68037_1;
procedure Main is
begin
PR68037_1.Run;
end Main;
pr68037_1.ads
package PR68037_1 is
procedure Run;
end PR68037_1;
pr68037_1.adb
with System.Machine_Code;
with Ada.Assertions;
with Interfaces.C;
with GNAT.OS_Lib;
package body PR68037_1 is
-- Ada-like re-implementation of
-- gcc/testsuite/gcc.dg/guality/pr68037-1.c
subtype uword_t is Interfaces.C.unsigned_long; -- for x86-64
ERROR : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_0#;
IP : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_1#;
CS : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_2#;
FLAGS : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_3#;
SP : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_4#;
SS : constant uword_t := 16#1234567_5#;
type interrupt_frame is
record
ip : uword_t;
cs : uword_t;
flags : uword_t;
sp : uword_t;
ss : uword_t;
end record
with Convention => C;
procedure fn (frame : interrupt_frame; error : uword_t)
with Export, Convention => C, Link_Name => "__fn";
pragma Machine_Attribute (fn, "interrupt");
--------
-- fn --
--------
procedure fn (frame : interrupt_frame; error : uword_t) is
use Ada.Assertions;
use type uword_t;
begin
-- Using the assertion function here. In general, be careful when
-- calling subprograms from an ISR. For now it's OK as we will not
-- return from the ISR and not continue the execution of an interrupted
-- program.
Assert (frame.ip = IP , "Mismatch IP");
Assert (frame.cs = CS , "Mismatch CS");
Assert (frame.flags = FLAGS, "Mismatch FLAGS");
Assert (frame.sp = SP , "Mismatch SP");
Assert (frame.ss = SS , "Mismatch SS");
-- At the end of this function IRET will be executed. This will
-- result in a segmentation fault as the value for EIP is nonsense.
-- Hence, abort the program before IRET is executed.
GNAT.OS_Lib.OS_Exit (0);
end fn;
---------
-- Run --
---------
procedure Run is
use System.Machine_Code;
use ASCII;
begin
-- Mimic the processor behavior when an ISR is invoked. See also:
--
-- Intel (R) 64 and IA-32 Architectures / Software Developer's Manual
-- Volume 3 (3A, 3B, 3C & 3D) : System Programming Guide
-- Section 6.12: Exception and Interrupt Handling
--
-- Push the data to the stack and jump unconditionally to the
-- interrupt service routine.
Asm
(Template =>
"push %0" & LF &
"push %1" & LF &
"push %2" & LF &
"push %3" & LF &
"push %4" & LF &
"push %5" & LF &
"jmp __fn",
Inputs =>
(uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", SS),
uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", SP),
uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", FLAGS),
uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", CS),
uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", IP),
uword_t'Asm_Input ("l", ERROR)),
Volatile => True);
end Run;
end PR68037_1;
I compiled the program in GNAT CE 2019 with compiler options -g -mgeneral-regs-only (copied from the GCC test). Note that the parameter interrupt_frame will be passed by reference (see RM B.3 69/2).
I am currently learning sml but I have one question that I can not find an answer for. I have googled but still have not found anything.
This is my code:
fun diamond(n) =
if(n=1) then (
print("*")
) else (
print("*")
diamond(n-1)
)
diamond(5);
That does not work. I want the code to show as many * as number n is and I want to do that with recursion, but I don't understand how to do that.
I get an error when I try to run that code. This is the error:
Standard ML of New Jersey v110.78 [built: Thu Aug 20 19:23:18 2015]
[opening a4_p2.sml] a4_p2.sml:8.5-9.17 Error: operator is not a
function [tycon mismatch] operator: unit in expression:
(print "*") diamond /usr/local/bin/sml: Fatal error -- Uncaught exception Error with 0 raised at
../compiler/TopLevel/interact/evalloop.sml:66.19-66.27
Thank you
You can do side effects in ML by using ';'
It will evaluate whatever is before the ';' and discard its result.
fun diamond(n) =
if(n=1)
then (print "*"; 1)
else (print "*"; diamond(n-1));
diamond(5);
The reason for the error is because ML is a strongly typed language that although you don't need to specify types explicitly, it will infer them based on environmental factors at compile time. For this reason, every evaluation of functions, statements like if else need to evaluate to an unambiguous singular type.
If you were allowed to do the following:
if(n=1)
then 1
else print "*";
then the compiler will get a different typing for the then and else branch respectively.
For the then branch the type would be int -> int whereas the type for the else branch would be int -> unit
Such a dichotomy is not allowed under a strongly typed language.
As you need to evaluate to a singular type, you will understand that ML does not support the execution of a block of instructions as we commonly see in other paradigms which transposed to ML naively would render something like this:
....
if(n=1)
then (print "1"
print "2"
)
else (print "3"
diamond(n-1)
)
...
because what type would the then branch evaluate to? int -> unit? Then what about the other print statement? A statement has to return a singular result(even it be a compound) so that would not make sense. What about int -> unit * unit? No problem with that except that syntactically speaking, you failed to communicate a tuple to the compiler.
For this reason, the following WOULD work:
fun diamond(n) =
if(n=1)
then (print "a", 1) /* A tuple of the type unit * int */
else diamond(n-1);
diamond(5);
As in this case you have a function of type int -> unit * int.
So in order to satisfy the requirement of the paradigm of strongly typed functional programming where we strive for building mechanisms that evaluate to one result-type, we thus need to communicate to the compiler that certain statements are to be executed as instructions and are not to be incorporated under the typing of the function under consideration.
For this reason, you use ';' to communicate to the compiler to simply evaluate that statement and discard its result from being incorporated under the type evaluation of the function.
As far as your actual objective is concerned, following is a better way of writing the function, diamond as type int -> string:
fun diamond(n) =
if(n=1)
then "*"
else "*" ^ diamond(n-1);
print( diamond(5) );
The above way is more for debugging purposes.
I am attempting to understand how to fix this circular dependency. All the examples I can find online suggest using a limited with, but then they demonstrate the use with two basic types, whereas this is a bit more advanced. The circular dependency is between the two files below. I thought it was between package Chessboard ... and the Piece type, but now I am not so sure. Attempting to put the package Chessboard ... line within chess_types.ads after the Piece type is declared and removing the use and with of Chessboard results in an error: this primitive operation is declared too late for the Move procedure. I am stuck on how to get out of this dependency. Any help would be much appreciated!
Thank you
chessboard.ads:
with Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Vectors;
use Ada.Containers;
with Chess_Types;
use Chess_Types;
package Chessboard is new Indefinite_Vectors(Board_Index, Piece'Class);
chess_types.ads:
with Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Vectors;
use Ada.Containers;
with Chessboard;
use Chessboard;
package Chess_Types is
subtype Board_Index is Integer range 1 .. 64;
type Color is (Black, White);
type Piece is tagged
record
Name : String (1 .. 3) := " ";
Alive : Boolean := False;
Team : Color;
Coordinate : Integer;
end record;
procedure Move_Piece(Board: in Vector; P: in Piece; Move_To: in Integer);
end Chess_Types;
More Code for question in comments:
Chess_Types.Piece_Types.ads:
package Chess_Types.Piece_Types is
type Pawn is new Piece with
record
First_Move : Boolean := True;
end record;
overriding
procedure Move_Piece(Board: in CB_Vector'Class; Po: in Pawn; Move_To: in Board_Index);
-- Other piece types declared here
end Chess_Types.Piece_Types;
Chess_Types.Piece_Types.adb:
with Ada.Text_IO;
use Ada.Text_IO;
package body Chess_Types.Piece_Types is
procedure Move_Piece(Board: in CB_Vector'Class; Po: in Pawn; Move_To: in Board_Index) is
Index_From, Index_To : Board_Index;
Move_From : Board_Index := Po.Coordinate;
begin
-- Obtain locations of Pawn to move from (Index_From) and to (Index_To)
-- in terms of the single dimension vector
for I in Board.First_Index .. Board.Last_Index loop
if Board.Element(I).Coordinate = Move_From then
Index_From := I;
end if;
if Board.Element(I).Coordinate = Move_To then
Index_To := I;
end if;
end loop;
-- Determine if the requested move is legal, and if so, do the move.
-- More possibilties to be entered, very primitive for simple checking.
if Move_To - Move_From = 2 and then Po.First_Move = True then
Board.Swap(I => Index_From, J => Index_To); -- "actual for "Container" must be a variable"
Board.Element(Index_From).First_Move := False; -- "no selector for "First_Move" for type "Piece'Class"
elsif Move_To - Po.Coordinate = 1 then
Board.Swap(Index_From, Index_To); -- "actual for "Container" must be a variable"
end if;
-- Test to make sure we are in the right Move_Piece procedure
Put_Line("1");
end Move_Piece;
-- Other piece type move_piece procedures defined here
end Chess_types.Piece_Types;
As a note to understand further, the Coordinate component of each piece correspond to ICCF numeric notation, which is two digits, so there needs to be some type of conversion between the vector and the ICCF notation, hence the reason for the whole for loop at the start.
This is a tough one. It looks like limited with and generics don't play nice together. The only way to make it work is to go back to using your own access type:
with Ada.Containers.Vectors;
use Ada.Containers;
limited with Chess_Types;
use Chess_Types;
package Chessboard_Package is
subtype Board_Index is Integer range 1 .. 64;
type Piece_Acc is access all Piece'Class;
package Chessboard is new Vectors(Board_Index, Piece_Acc);
end Chessboard_Package;
I had to put the instantiation into a new package, and move the Board_Index there too. Also, I changed it to Vectors since Piece_Acc is a definite type and there's no point in using Indefinite_Vectors. But in any event, this defeats the purpose. I'm just not sure Ada gives you a way to do what you want with two packages like this.
Even doing it in one package is not easy:
with Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Vectors;
use Ada.Containers;
package Chess_Types is
subtype Board_Index is Integer range 1 .. 64;
type Color is (Black, White);
type Piece is tagged record ... end record;
type CB_Vector is tagged;
procedure Move_Piece (Board : in CB_Vector'Class;
P : in Piece;
Move_To : in Board_Index);
package Chessboard is new Indefinite_Vectors(Board_Index, Piece'Class);
type CB_Vector is new Chessboard.Vector with null record;
end Chess_Types;
This compiles, but I had to add extra stuff to get around some of the language rules (in particular, when you instantiate a generic, that "freezes" all prior tagged types so that you can no longer declare a new primitive operation of the type); also, I had to make the Board parameter a classwide type to avoid running into the rule about primitive operations of multiple tagged types.
As I understand it, this will do what you want.
with Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Vectors;
use Ada.Containers;
package Chess_Types is
subtype Board_Index is Integer range 1 .. 64;
type Color is (Black, White);
type Piece is abstract tagged
record
Name : String (1 .. 3) := " ";
Alive : Boolean := False;
Team : Color;
Coordinate : Board_Index;
end record;
type Piece_Ptr is access all Piece'Class;
package Chessboard is new Indefinite_Vectors(Board_Index, Piece_Ptr);
procedure Move_Piece (Board : in Chessboard.Vector;
P : in Piece'Class;
Move_To : in Board_Index) is abstract;
end Chess_Types;
NOTES:
Piece is now abstract, as is the Move_Piece method. This will mean you now need to derive your other piece types (package piece_type-rook.ads, with a move_piece method for rook) etc...
Chessboard now contains pointers (Class wide pointers), beware allocating, deallocating, deep copy, shallow copy issues when using it.
You should now be able to call Move_Piece on any dereference of a piece_ptr and have it dispatch to the correct method.
The Move_To parameter is now the same type as the Board_Index. (Coordinate also brought in line) -- this seems a bit clunky, perhaps rethink this. (Row & Column Indices defining a 2D array perhaps? --No need for Indefinite_Vectors)
To answer the second question in the comment:
To use First_Move, the procedure has to know that it's a Pawn. If the object is declared with type Piece'Class, you can't access components that are defined only for one of the derived types. (That's true in most OO languages.) This may indicate a flaw in your design; if you have a procedure that takes a Piece'Class as a parameter, but you want to do something that makes sense only for a Pawn, then maybe you should add another operation to your Piece that does a default action for most pieces (perhaps it does nothing) and then override it for Pawn. Other possibilities are to use a type conversion:
procedure Something (P : Piece'Class) is ...
if Pawn(P).First_Move then ...
which will raise an exception if P isn't a Pawn. If you want to test first, you can say "if P in Pawn". I sometimes write code like:
if P in Pawn then
declare
P_Pawn : Pawn renames Pawn(P);
begin
if P_Pawn.First_Move then ...
end;
end if;
But defining a new polymorphic operation is preferable. (Note: I haven't tested the above code, hope I didn't make a syntax error somewhere.)
I'm an absolute beginner in Ada and I'm trying to calculate sin(x) [sin(3) now] by using Taylor-series, but I just can't get it to work.
So here is my procedure:
with Ada.Float_Text_IO;
with Mat;
procedure SinKoz is
X:Float:=3.0;
Szamlalo:Float:=0.0;
begin
for I in 1..100 loop
Szamlalo := Szamlalo + ((-1.0)**I)*(X**(2.0*I+1.0))/Mat.Faktorialis(2*I+1);
end loop;
Ada.Float_Text_IO.Put( Szamlalo );
end SinKoz;
And inside Mat, here is my Faktorialis, which calculates the factorial of 2*I+1:
function Faktorialis( N: Float ) return Float is
Fakt : Float := 1.0;
begin
for I in 1..N loop
Fakt := Fakt * I;
end loop;
return Fakt;
end Faktorialis;
When i'm trying to compile my code, this error comes up:
exponent must be of type Natural, found type "Standard.Float"
I hope you can help me trying to figure out what went wrong with my types!
The first question is : do you need to raise X to a non-integer power?
It looks to me as if you don't : in which case replace X**(2.0*I+1.0) with X**(2*I+1) and all will be well.
But if you really do (perhaps not here, but in another application) you just need to make such an operator visible : there's one for Float in the package Ada.Numerics.Elementary_Functions so precede your function with
with Ada.Numerics.Elementary_Functions;
use Ada.Numerics.Elementary_Functions;
and it should work as written.
Finally, if you have created your own float type, you can instantiate the generic package Ada.Numerics.Generic_Elementary_Functions with your type as its parameter, to create a set of these functions specifically for your type.
Gotta love Ada's strong typing.
Off the top of my head, I suspect your problem may be this line:
Szamlalo := Szamlalo + ((-1.0)**I)*(X**(2.0*I+1.0))/Mat.Faktorialis(2*I+1);
2.0*I+1.0 is going to return a Float. Not a Natural. You could try wrapping that in Integer() or Natural() (Natural is a subtype of Integer) and see if that helps.